How Dvořák must have loved his sad water-spirit (Sally Matthews depicted in the latest revival of Melly Still's unforgettable Glyndebourne production above by Tristram Kenton): there isn't a bar that palls in his Rusalka, and I was very reluctant to let the opera go in the fourth and last Opera in Depth class on it last Monday afternoon. Curious that so fantastical a tale, differently treated in many variants, should have brought forth such deep responses from so many of the masters who touched it, otherwise Hans Christian Andersen in The Little Mermaid, Mendelssohn in his Overture The Fair Melusine and, least known these days, Henri de la Motte, Baron Fouqué, in the seminal tale, Undine, of 1811 (illustrated below in a later edition by Arthur Rackham).
No wonder Goethe loved it so much. Undine is no wan angel; when we first meet her she's capricious and wilful (not bad traits for a heroine by today's standards), only later transformed by love for her Prince Huldbrand. What's remarkable, though, is the author's human understanding of the love triangle which develops in the royal realm.
The fascination of Dvořák and Kvapil's second act is how the sudden appearance of the Foreign Princess to challenge the mute-among-mortals seems hallucinatory to the Prince: she even has some of Rusalka's music, like a kind of Black Swan, representing the sexual desire lacking in the protagonist (Robert Carsen's superb Paris production makes her and witch Jezibaba into aspects of Rusalka). In Fouqué, the unhappiness develops over time; at first Princess Bertalda becomes Rusalka's confidante for real once the prince has ridden back through the forest with his love back to his domain (painting below by Daniel Maclise, 1843).
The situation is complicated by the fact that she turns out to be the mortal child snatched away by the water spirits from the fisherman and his wife who have since brought up Rusalka as their own. At the beginning of Chapter XIII ('How they lived at Castle Ringstetten') we get this:
The writer of this story, both because it moves his own heart, and because he wishes it to move that of others, begs you, dear reader, to pardon him, if he now briefly passes over a considerable space of time, only cursorily mentioning the events that marked it. He knows well that he might portray skilfully, step by step, how Huldbrand's heart began to turn from Undine to Bertalda; how Berthalda more and more responded with ardent affection to the young knight, and how they both looked upon the poor wife as a mysterious being rather to be feared than pitied; how Undine wept, and how her tears stung the knight's heart with remorse, without awakening his former love, so that though he at times was kind and endearing to her, a cold shudder would soon draw him from her, and he would turn to his fellow mortal, Bertalda. All this the reader knows might be fully detailed, and perhaps ought to have been so; but such a task would have been too painful, for similar things have been known to him by sad experience, and he shrinks from their shadow even in remembrance. You know probably a like feeling, dear reader, for such is the lot of mortal man. Happy are you if you have received rather than inflicted the pain, for in such things it is more blessed to receive than to give.
How this affected the author precisely is not known, though I hazard a guess from the fact that he was was twice married (I've found nothing about the first wife). But how truthful, and - in the uncredited translation I have - how much more telling than the discreetly erotic drawings that accompany it.
I note that Fouqué provided the libretto for Hoffmann's opera on the subject; what a shame that the music is so much more pedestrian than either the novella or Hoffmann's literary tales.
In the end I used nothing from the Hoffmann opera to illustrate the classes, though there was plenty from Mendelssohn, Weber, Tchaikovsky (the four surviving numbers from his Undine, including the love duet which became the Act 2 Pas d'action with violin and cello solos replacing soprano and tenor in Swan Lake), Sullivan (yes, the magic/spooky music of Iolanthe is worth taking seriously) and Dvořák's other operas (chiefly The Devil and Kate and Armida, chronologically either side of Rusalka).
As for the opera itself, we had mostly what we needed in two CD sets and two films. On disc, there's the Supraphon Rusalka from Neumann with the unsurpassably luminous Gabriela Beňačková, whose Song to the Moon is peerless, or at least first equal with Lucia Popp's - this is actually from a desert island arias disc -
and Mackerras's, also with the Czech Philharmonic. starring Fleming and Heppner, never better. The last duet is overwhelming in what for me is maybe the greatest, Liebestod-ish end of any opera. This excerpt comes in a tad too late for my liking, but you get the idea.
The DVDs are of Carsen's production mentioned above, again with Fleming, and the late, lamented Sergey Larin as the Prince, and another going way back to Pountney's Victorian nursery fantasia for English National Opera, which is still heartbreaking in the final scene (Eilene Hannan and John Treleaven). So much so that one student had to run out of the room at the end so that we didn't hear her sobs. I had that the first time I saw the film, though I don't remember the live performance having quite the same effect. Alas, Eilene Hannan died in 2014 at the age of 67 - best remembered as an intense presence on stage in everything she did.
Meanwhile, for next season, academic year, call it what you will, I've decided that we'll devote the autumn term to three, rather than two, operas, one a stage work: Handel's Agrippina, Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Weill's Der Silbersee. The spring term will see the third instalment of our four-year Ring journey with Siegfried, while the summer bring Strauss's Elektra and one more TBC. All tending to the Germanic, I know, but that's what the London rep is offering in 2019-20. Let me know in a message here if you're interested, complete with e-mail; I won't publish it, but I'll be sure to reply.
A tour de force column, David! I could drink up a course by you but, sadly, you know why not.... I shall like Undine have a “temperamental”.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Pamela, who, readers should know, is a Rusalka of the Southern Hemisphere, though presumably not pining for anyone in her home by the sea in NZ.
ReplyDeleteLoved your aside, "Undine is no wan angel; when we first meet her she's capricious and wilful (not bad traits for a heroine by today's standards)." Buckets, I suspect, you could bring to bear on that single observation.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very interesting version of the story by Aribert Reimann: his opera 'Melusine'...after a play by Yvann Goll.
ReplyDeleteI discovered it in during a recent Reimann phase. It's really worth exploring. Maybe tough going at first, but reveals itself with repeated listening.
There's a pretty good recording.
I have enjoyed your writing for years. This is my first time commenting.
Don't mean to be anonymous, but don't have the time now for the account set up and wanted to get my comment in.
Peter in Seattle
Good to hear from you, Peter in Seattle (you know you can actually sign in with a name but not an account as a third option? I sometimes do that for friends who've had trouble posting). I felt guilty enough that I didn't reference Henze's ballet, but the Reimann I didn't know about. Not too fond of his Lear, on the one showing at ENO years back. Too much angsty music early on leaving the storm nothing to explode out of (though it was even louder). I'll check this out, though. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnd Sue, 'buckets' is the mot juste, though not about what more I could say. Buckets of tears were shed during our classes... I shed some more, incidentally, at the joint 'Love and Death' recital in Southrepps yesterday from the phenomenal Martin James Bartiett (still only 21) and Ben Johnson. A wish was fulfilled: they performed Schumann's 'Wehmut' followed immediately by the slow movement the main theme of which is a deliberate homage to it in Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata (the gist of the words is 'I seem to sing as though I were happy, but no-one knows the deep pain within my soul'), MJB also played Granados's 'El amor y la muerte' from Goyescas, one of my all-time favourite piano pieces. Such depth and emotion. It's on MJB's fab CD, and was played by special request. Quite an indulgence.
Since I came to man's estate I have had tears rolling down my face only twice. Once was when our dear friend Andrew was singing the dedication of the Bread and the Wine in MacMillan's Mass ( of 2000 for Westminster Cathedral) and the other was the recognition scene in Electra with Sue Bullock - " The dogs in the yard recognised me but my sister did not". By comparison, the dramatic scenes in 19th century opera are often musical melodrama, and philosophy and painting were on a parallel track. Then fortunately Russell blew the whistle on the nonsense of Idealism in philosophy and Picasso on the easy paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Impressionists. The change in the music was equally of a fundamental nature, though I find it more difficult to articulate. Strangely, novels and plays reached a level in the 19th century hardly ever achieved in the subsequent years. Anyway, we do not engage with great works of art to enjoy ourselves, except collaterally, but to become better people.
ReplyDeleteToo broad a sweep, sir, and clearly too hard a heart. Manet? Not what I'd call an Impressionist, but what's in a label? And of course you have a problem with Wagner. But Rusalka is turn-of-the-century, and it's a truly great opera. You show no signs of knowing it; listen to that final duet, at least. As for the strict statement with which you end, why can what Tchaikovsky called 'le joli', 'the pretty', in music, not be valid? He preferred Delibes' Sylvia to The Ring, and while I wouldn't go that far, it's still great music.
ReplyDeleteOf course what I wrote was too general. Nor was there a break, more a move over time. And there are bits of the 19th century opera which do analyse things at the higher level. Still I maintain the point, and I believe that Russell and Picasso were tremendously important turning points in our view of the world. I should have added that I did NOT include Wagner in my comment on 19th century opera. He was in a different class,and is not at all the subject of my criticisms set out above. My view of Wagner is quite different. He embodies in his operas the terrible German philosophy deriving from Hegel et al, denying the Enlightenment, evoking Hermann who destroyed the Roman legions in 9 AD. This philosophy as a determinant of people's thinking is now thankfully dead, mainly as a result of the practical actions of its last exponent, Adolf Hitler. So possibly it does not matter if his operas are a significant part of the musical life, since most of Wagner's fans, even if they should recognise the philosophical dimension, will not see it as dangerous and wrong. As for my last sentence, and to take an example, one can certainly enjoy Cosi van Tutte, but if one does not emerge a better person it is just good music. The quality of the music is - if it is important music - a means to an end, not an end in itself. However, I would not wish to say that le joli or the pretty is not important, in a different way.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies for rabbiting on about Wagner. Rather a bore, sorry.
ReplyDeleteNot if you'd shift your perspective on him a bit. His music-dramas are way too rich to represent any one philosophy; some even contradict themselves. The music too often gets overshadowed by what the libretto's saying.
ReplyDeleteHistorians ( Bullock, Shirer, Steinberg) are unanimous that Wagner in his operas expressed a philosophy parallel to that of Hegel, etc. And everything I have read about the origins of German thought leads inter alia to its foundation in the myths of the primitive in the forests, to the elevation of Heroes and Supermen, and the promotion of instinct above reason. The problem is how the operas can be seen separately from the philosophy, though maybe you are right, and the music should be seen separately from at least parts of the libretto. This would however be against Wagner's concept of the gesamtkunstwerke. Also, as I said above, many listeners may not see the philosophy, or not be worried about it if they do see it, since it is no longer alive in the world, thankfully.
ReplyDeleteHistorians are not musicians. And in any case the philosophy of Wagner at the start of the Ring - with Wotan the corrupt power-broker 'the sum of the intelligences of the present' was totally different from what he presented at the end. The theme is actually very simple and timelessly pertinent - 'the love of power versus the power of love', which Wagner decided was ultimately now powerful enough. So I'm not even proposing a separation of thought and music. In any case, you are not someone who has cared to spend decades of his life engrossed in Wagner's works, so I don't think you're ideally qualified to comment.
ReplyDeleteYou pinpoint the basis of our difference. The view of historians ( and me) arises from sources different from that of musicians. Historians may not have studied Wagner's music from the musical point of view, and musicians may not be very interested in Hegel and his wide influence. My question - with which I have wrestled for some years - is, how can they both be valid ( as I am sure they are)?
ReplyDeleteNo, I didn't - I pointed out that Wagner was not a philosopher as such and adapted philosophies to suit his ever changing views. But in any case I find it completely uninteresting that the majority of Wagner studies approach him from the angle of the libretti (Bryan Magee being an honourable exception to the irrelevance).
ReplyDeleteNow, anyone for Rusalka?
I will enter with trepidation to the musical side of this, forgetting Hegel ( would that the world had forgotten him a bit earlier). You say that the majority of Wagner studies approach him from the angle of the libretti.........if you disagree with this approach, are you not disagreeing with Wagner and his conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk ? And, anyway, are the libretti an "irrelevance" ?
ReplyDeleteOf course not. Both together. Approaching purely from either angle is wrong. But like I said, I really don't think that someone who has refused to listen/go to Wagner performances for decades is debating on an even playing field.
ReplyDeleteNoch einmal: Rusalka, bitte, prosim.
I am suggesting that there are two playing fields and my question is how do they interact ( if playing fields do interact )
ReplyDeletePS Dvorak ( though a symphony rather than Rusalka ) was my first classical love and he remains on my special list
ReplyDeleteAnd that (the question of the interaction) is a matter of infinite complexity.
ReplyDeleteI would (personally) put Rusalka above all the symphonies (though I love 6 and 8) and even the chamber works...