Berg and His Legacy

It's probably not usual to have one's earliest exposure to opera be those of Alban Berg's, but they were for me. The small but prescient Darien Library of my youth had the superb Deutsche Grammophon recording of Wozzeck, conducted by the underappreciated Karl Böhm, and I must have taken it out ten times, eventually asking my family to buy me the similarly cast discs of Lulu (which took me longer to appreciate. But at age 17, having seen not much more than The Gondoliers, La Bohème, and having heard little more than I Pagliacci and Il Trovatore, these works were a leap off the mountain into ice cold waters of the twentieth century. These works grew in depth for me the more one read about them. Initially, the Theodor Adorno book on Berg, which I learned was a bunch of hooie (and suspected it pretty early on); and finally the two monumental books by George Perle, which convinced me that if anyone wants to understand Berg, especially his two operas, they must read these volumes. Probably no one thought more about the works, or synthesized more intellectual threads than the late Professor Perle (whose own musical compositions I am rather indifferent to). Nonetheless, Berg at his most emotional is terrific - terrifying, really. That last interlude from Wozzeck, after the murder of Marie, and just before the children's ring-a-rosie scene, it is the culmination of all the musical ideas in the opera:



And while it meanders into one atonal, lunatic phrase after the next, it starts and ends in D minor (and is called an 'invention on a key'), and apparently is based on an earlier, tonal, abandoned work that Berg managed to meld with themes that have preceeded it in the opera.

When I was growing up, there was very little about Alban Berg available (except for that awful book by Adorno). One had to listen and make judgments based on observation. I bought the score to Wozzeck ("Are you going to play this?" said the incredulous man behind the counter at Schirmer's), and tried to study it in the light of twelve-tone music, and, very frustrated, learned from Perle's book that it wasn't twelve-tonal at all (damn), but freely tonal, reined in by many constricting parameters. Inventions, dances, a passacaglia, a chorale. It was so full of inventiveness that I thought "he was Schoenberg's pupil?? -- he should have been his teacher!"

But then, as in so many other things, others caught on, and now every opera house does one opera or the other, and the audience is either all devotées, or hostile and walk out before the good parts. And once the regies take over, suddenly it's not about what we all though it was about any longer. In this scene, Margaret, who is supposed to be a simple woman singing in a tavern, is luridly gawking and looking like a boil on the face of the drama--or do I overstep?



Johann Woyzeck, the historical Wozzeck, was as simple as can be. Now it's up to the Great Complexicators to show us he's something else.

Accidental Coincidentals

This weekend was the performance of Franz Schreker's Der Ferne Klang at Bard College, under the direction of Leon Botstein, who not only has to get points for utter stamina, conducting a long, difficult work; but also for the perspicacity of programming this opera in the first place. I have known DFK for a while, and have enjoyed it; have also heard Der Spielwerk und die Prinzessin and have the score to Die Gezeichneten (to which you must say "God blesshyou" whenever someone mentions it out loud).

Der Ferne Klang, from Act II as staged at Bard.

Der Ferne Klang was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger, who staged Bard's successful Les Huguenots last year, and one could see where he took the rather prosaic libretto and made it more meaningful; whether that was what was needed is another, debatable point, but generally his work illuminated the dreamy, crazy, angst-filled fantasty with something approaching historicity. When I say the libretto is prosaic, I mean that if you look at Schreker's actual stage directions and scene settings, we see depicted a common room, a forest, a restaurant. In scene I, Herr Strassberger has given us not just a bourgeois living room, but a scene from Un Chien Andalou, with the protagonist dragging a rope into his fiancée's parlor, onto which is tethered an armoire, a sofa, a chaise longue, a bed - all on wheels. Buñuel would have loved it, but would have added a few grand pianos, not to say donkeys and priests.

Scene from "Un Chien Andalou", Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí, 1929.
From Act I of Der Ferne Klang as staged at Bard. The living room has already been dragged in. The mousy women on the right look as though they stumbled in from Bayreuth's Lohengrin, (see below).



But the more poignant rethinking of the setting was the second scene, which (in the original libretto) is supposed to take place in a dark wood; but in this staging it takes place in a cinema. Even more Hitchcockianly, we, the real audience are behind the screen, looking through it at the actors playing the audience watching the film. Neat idea. On the screen between these two audiences is a mélange of scenes from Fritz Lang's Der Müde Tod (1921) (above), which had a huge influence on--Luis Buñuel (as well as Ingmar Bergman). Even more interesting.

Der Müde Tod = "Weary Death"; Der Ferne Klang = "The Distant Sound."

The idea of the cinema screen playing simultaneously with the opera was the most engaging element of the staging, but sometimes was much too much stimulus at one time for anyone to absorb and make sense of. Der Müde Tod made sense as counterpoint; but later on shots of German military preparing for war was rather a bollocks. I am so tired of all German opera being regied to death, comparing the simple plot being sung before us to incipient agression, military buildup, Naziism and sausage-eating.

However, a further coincidence chimed in this scene. Now that we are looking through the screen, we are watching not only Lang's film about a woman contemplating suicide and meeting Death (à la Seventh Seal), but hearing our singing operatic heroine Grete also contemplating suicide. To further muddy the waters, in the cinema's back row seats we can see a very unexpected interplay of a male patron receiving the oral/intercrural attentions of a woman who was sitting by him when the scene began, and now has disappeared under the seats. At this point of sensual overstimulation, my ears seemed to deceive me: what Grete was singing was from I Gioielli della Madonna, the opera we saw in May that I helped tangentially to get produced in New York City. How could that be?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the notes don't lie. My ear actually served me well in this instance.

Der Ferne Klang, by Franz Schreker, 1909-1912.


I Gioielli della Madonna by Wolf-Ferrari, 1911.

Yes, different harmonies, but the exact same notes, same rhythm, same pitch-values. OK, the jig is up. Who cribbed whom? Both German composers, both same year, both same measure. Was Schreker giving a two-measure hommage? Did both composers draw from some the same cultural reminiscence, perhaps? Did their nannies sing them this ninna-nanna at bedtime? For Schreker, it seems to symbolize the release of Death. For Wolf-Ferrari, it is the longing for real love. What is most remarkable for me is that W-F's opera is full of melody, full of local Neapolitan color and song; Schreker is not about melody, really. (A colleague said to me, 'yes, it's nice enough, but when it's over you can't remember a note.') This snatch of melody stands out in the whole opera as something you can remember.

I find that quite interesting, especially since around the same time Richard Strauss was accused of plagiarizing Gnecchi's opera Cassandra in Elektra But there are diverging opinions on this. However to me there is no doubt of it when you hear the two of them! -- but Strauss won out, and no one hears the Gnecchi any more.

Yet Herr Doktor Richard Strauss also aspired to Stravinsky's maxim, to 'always steal from the best.' While conducting opera throughout Germany he probably heard or presented Massenet's Sapho in the 1890s; one theme in it, very uncharacteristic for Massenet became -- magically -- a very important and characteristic theme in Strauss's Salome, representing her longing for the man she has had slain.

from Sapho by Jules Massenet, 1897.

from Salome, by Richard Strauss (1905).

I suppose one can say that such hommages or coincidences are forgivable when the composers are living in the same timeframe. But what do we do with this one?

from La Fanciulla Del West, Giacomo Puccini, 1910 

from The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1986

This one is a little harder to see, and if you don't read music may be somewhat hard to appreciate, but they're in similar keys (G-flat/D-flat), and the melody is over the same harmony. When accused of 'sounding like Puccini' - Webber remarked "It's supposed to sound like Puccini!" One can see how well he succeeded! Personally, I'd like to see Webber write a new version of Tosca. It could be totally different, and be titled: Tosca!

Lohengrinning and Bayreuthing it

All right, I agree that's too much for a punning title. But this year's Bayreuth production of Lohengrin has to bring a smile to someone's face. I truly do not yet understand this Lego mentality of dramaturgy, where perfectly beautiful performances are staged using tropes that seem to come from the nursery. Take a look at scenes from this year's production, (if it doesn't start automatically, go to Start Video and select "Stage Manager") --which feature black and white rats as the townspeople. Anthony Tommasini said that it was 'strange but moving.' I guess we have to believe him -- but I wonder if I am simply becoming much too much of a fuddy-duddy to appreciate this monkeying with the staging. Believe me, if someone did this to a work of mine, I'd have something to say about it. All right, so their little rat-feet are cute. But in Lohengrin??

I guess I keep thinking of Lauritz Melchior wearing little spongy feet.
How sad to think that all the thought and history that went into the creation of these works should be ground down to the great Lego-leveler of the Regies. Is this the swansong of Lohengrin? What if they were performing The Ratcatcher of Hamlin or Schwanda Der Dudelsackpfeifer, or even Hans, il Suonatore del Flauto in a nearby competing Festspielhaus? Then you got something.

Insignificance? Or Significance?

Interesting that Our sun is really one of the smallest stars out there; what does that make us on an even smaller Earth, with all our petty problems and snarling disagreements.
Just for a laugh:

Laughing like a fool is the only humor left me.
Everything is tinged and stained in tragedy;
Every drink a binge, every effort, strain.
Blinking irritates, breathing needs reminding—
Aching racks my disembodied brain,
Passions run to hates and seeing heralds blinding.
A recipe for what I know and who I am:
The saddle full, the kidneys and the ham,
On the rack of life, I am a Rack of Lamb.

Yesterday's air begs attention
Beyond its usual frame, and
Serious in acrid shafts
Of plutonian merriment, wafts
A looming palette of chilled boredom
Through the morning's rumble to a Colder City.
Let us start the day with prayer, with thanks
With hope, with sunblooming,
With birdsong, water, or sincere
Pelts of snow but not the defeat
Of hopssmelling puddles of beer
Shellac-thick, pickled on the seat.

Just for a laugh.

Publicity in Places

This week I'll be performing Chaplin's The Gold Rush at the Pound Ridge Library, formerly known as the Hiram Halle Library. I was touched to see another blogger has taken the time to write about it. I also had someone named Marschner join my group on Heinrich Marschner, and then there is this restaurant named "Mucci's" in North Carolina -- Who knew? - I joined them and they joined me on Twitter. I don't recall having such feelings before, so I don't know how to characterize it really; when inbound and outbound links start to interpenetrate your cocoon, do you feel good? I suppose I do, if I look upon it as publicity. But there is a level of spreading around local or intercyber camaraderie, and then there's publicity, where you don't care who responds. Since we are so inured to email, we assume that if we are publicized electronically it must be personal--but that's not the case, is it?

Once again into the breeches

Or, Greenscreen was all my Joy

So we are to be treated to a Hollywood version of The Shakespeare Authorship Question at last. Roland Emmerich is directing Anonymous, a full-scale re-telling of the SAQ in its latest incarnation, that is, that The Earl of Oxford, a/k/a William Shake-speare, wrote just about everything from Piers Ploughman to Hellzapoppin, by way of the King James Bible. Furthermore, he is supposed to be the son of Queen Elizabeth, and the father of henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton by the same woman, which is making this story seem about as plausible as the plot of Götterdämmerung. However, having once produced a television program on the same topic, albeit without the characters descending to incest and Queenophilia, I am keeping an open mind about it.




But when we read that Emmerich doesn't know much about the era, nor read much Shakespeare - does he care enough to be a good director for this touchy subject? Or will this be the 16th century version of Oliver Stone's W?

When John Thomas Looney wrote his groundbreaking book "'Shakespeare' Identified in Edward de Vere" in 1919, it was a bombshell of a book, creating enormous controversy and discussion, polarizing the academic community and paralyzing those who couldn't explain it all away with a dissertation. Many years later, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn wrote a book, "This Star of England"—a huge tome by the way, which tried to put Looney's work into perspective, and give a fuller picture of the Earl of Oxford and why they believed he was the true author of Shakespeare's works. While this book was not as hot a property as Looney's (and their names not as much a target for ridicule), their son, Charlton Ogburn, Jr., also wrote several books on the subject, his masterpiece being "The Mysterious William Shakespeare." It was this book that prompted William F. Buckley, Jr. to have Ogburn on his "Firing Line" program, which I saw one winter morning, and which interested me in the Authorship Question enough to buy just about every book on the subject and borrow the rest.

What I discovered was that since the days of Delia Bacon, who insisted that Sir Francis Bacon (not a relative -- depends whom you ask) was the real author, there were those who tried to give some real scholarship behind it all. There were also those in the lunatic fringe who believed that whatever they felt like believing was the truth, then began to shore up their beliefs with "evidence."


Again, I do keep an open mind (and, my friends point out, have a hole in my head to prove it); but some of the "evidence" to support the ideas of every braincramp that comes from the conspiracy-theoristas can be appalling as well as amusing. Added to that, the academicians start to froth at every orifice, and the battles-royal are terrifying in their scope and wrath. Early on (internetwise), Professor Hardy Cook's SHAKSPER Listserv had some lively discussions on the topic, but the venom that eventually seeped from the traditionalists was sometimes a sight to see, since they could not repress those who thought they were storming the Bardian Bastille. Eventually, I think, all Oxfordians were banned from the moderated list.

Theoristas do tend to go on at length. Delia Bacon's book weighs in at more than 500 pages; so do the Ogburns' magnae chartae. But one of the most inventive is actually a slender volume by Ralph L. Tweedale titled "Wasn't Shakespeare Somone Else?" (a coy title if there ever was one). Ralph believed that if you take all the instances of the letters "V E R E" including "W E R E" and "V E R" and a few other permutations, and circle them in the SONNETS of 1609, you can connect the circles with lines and lo and behold, large forms of letters appear in each sonnet, spelling out secret messages...

Someone and No One

Goes to show you how confident some people are. This is a modern "All About Eve" - even if it is for only a few minutes of fame...







If you don't understand French, you'll get the gist of it. A soccer fan managed to get to shake the President's hand, pose with the team, slide in front of photographers, join in a fabulous time when his team won, even though no one knew who he was! He signs footballs at the end, and says to the camera "it doesn't matter who I am, or what." "N'importe qui, n'importe quoi." Ooh la-la, have a great Quatorze Juilliet.