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Fairy-tale Opera and the Crossed Desires of Words and Music

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07494467.2010.534925

1477-2256

Stephen Benson,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

Abstract This article considers the idea of contemporary fairy-tale opera, looking in particular at In the House of Crossed Desires (1996), composed by John Woolrich to a libretto by Marina Warner. At the heart of the genre lies a singular crossing of desires: the desire for transformation, expressed and enacted in the fairy tale, and the yearning that is voiced in the impassioned song of opera. Fairy-tale opera thus represents one version of opera's ongoing play with the dramatic crossing of words and music. Keywords: OperaFairy TaleJohn WoolrichMarina Warner Notes [1] Marina Warner, writing in her role as librettist for an opera discussed at length here, is similarly skeptical about the continued demand for realism: 'The debate about the relevance of opera today, especially fairy-tale opera, has recently been revived: in the same way as critics call for the Great Novel of Britain in decline, so musicians and music critics have exhorted composers—or perhaps, strictly speaking, librettists—to confront contemporary issues. Nixon in China, not Orlando; The Plumber's Gift, not The Mask of Orpheus' (2004, p. 394). [2] For a potted history and summary of Adorno's essay, see the commentary by Richard Leppert included in the extensive editorial material provided with his selection of Adorno's writings on music (Adorno, 2002 Adorno, T. W. 2002. Essays on music, Edited by: Gillespie, Trans., Susan H. and Leppert, Richard. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], p. 237 n. 53). [3] For a reading of the Holliger as a fairy-tale opera, see Benson (2001 Benson, S. 2001. 'Something's missing': Towards a listening space for fairy-tale opera. New Comparison, 31: 112–129. [Google Scholar]). [4] Incommensurate only according to the twin imperatives of specialization and disciplinarity, facilitated and fostered by the standard organizational model of the modern university. [5] Warner's own fiction could be placed within this context, particularly the novels Indigo (1992) and The Leto Bundle (2001), and the story collection Mermaids in the Basement (1993). [6] Or, as Warner herself puts it, 'a fairy-tale opera about crossed purposes, crossed desires, and crossed love' (2004, p. 395). [7] Warner admits to having written 'a freely shaken mixture of several famous stories … bits of "Donkeyskin" and "Tattercoats", of "Rumplestiltskin" and "The Sandman", of the Grimms'"Mother Holle", Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop, and, above all, of The Golden Ass' (2004, p. 395). [8] The subtitle to the libretto of In the House of Crossed Desires states that the piece was 'inspired by The Golden Ass of Apuleius'. [9] Warner discusses the influence, on both herself and Woolrich, of Gozzi (Warner, 2004 Warner, M. 2004. "Donkey business, donkey work". In Signs & wonders: Essays on literature & culture, Edited by: Warner,, M. 393–405. London: Vintage. [Google Scholar], pp. 398–399). Gozzi drew extensively on folktale material, including Basile's Lo cunto de li cunti and the Galland translation of the Arabian Nights. On the subject of Gozzi, opera and the fairy tale, see Taruskin (1995 Taruskin, R. 1995. "From fairy tale to opera in four moves (not so simple)". In Opera and the Enlightenment, Edited by: Bauman, Thomas and McClymonds, Marita Petzoldt. 299–307. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). [10] For an extensive account of the influence of the fairy tale (among other things) on eighteenth- rather than nineteenth-century opera, see Buch (2009 Buch, D. J. 2009. Magic flutes and enchanted forests: The supernatural in eighteenth-century musical theatre, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]). [11] See Abbate (2001 Abbate, C. 2001. "Magic flute, nocturnal sun". In In search of opera, 55–106. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]) for a virtuosic reading of The Magic Flute which includes the question of its affiliations to the fairy tale, as well as its various afterlives. [12] On the subject of opera, nationalism and the fairy tale, see Bendix (1990 Bendix, R. 1990. Folk narrative, opera and the expression of cultural identity. Fabula, 31: 297–303. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). [13] Calvino does say, by way of explanation, 'This does not mean that I find the virtues of weight any less compelling' (1992, p. 3). [14] My argument here is clearly indebted to an essentially formalist conception of music, the legacy of which can be felt most strongly today in the likes of Peter Kivy, a latter-day Hanslick committed to the idea of music as 'language-like but not a language', the 'progression of musical sounds' conceived as having 'a kind of "sense" or "logic," but not semantic sense or logic' (Kivy, 2002 Kivy, P. 2002. Introduction to a philosophy of music, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], p. 63). Formalism is something of a bête noire for those literary types with hopes of working across the literature-music divide; but it does serve, nevertheless, as a salutary reminder that the culturalist model of musical experience can tend to disregard the very musicality of music. [15] Arthur Groos coins the term 'libretto-bashing' in his introduction to Reading Opera, an essay collection co-edited with Roger Parker (Groos & Parker, 1988 Groos, A. and Parker, R. 1988. Reading opera, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). The essays included therein offer a useful sampling of how opera might be 'read'. As well as Groos's introduction, see in particular Paul Robinson's 'A Deconstructive Postscript: Reading Libretti and Misreading Opera' (Robinson, 1988 Robinson, P. 1988. "A deconstructive postscript: Reading Libretti and misreading opera". In Reading opera, Edited by: A. Groos and R. Parker. 328–346. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). [16] I draw here on the argument of Winfried Menninghaus's In Praise of Nonsense: Kant and Bluebeard (1999), a book which asks serious questions of some of the basic working principles of fairy-tale studies. It is perhaps the seriousness of these questions that has led to the book's being largely ignored by those working in the field, despite having been published over ten years ago. [17] Restrictions that are marked visually in the forbidden spaces of the 'Tower room' and the 'prominent security locks and bolts' of the Cellar.