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Romance of the Rose (Excerpt)

2022; The MIT Press; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1162/pajj_a_00609

1537-9477

Kate Soper,

Historical and Literary Analyses

Inspired by the bizarre and audacious thirteenth-century poem of the same name, The Romance of the Rose mixes medieval and contemporary allegory to dramatize the ways in which love, sex, and music wreak havoc on our sense of self. Lulled into a dreamlike state by a seductive M.C., “The Dreamer,” the members of the audience follow their modern-day avatar “The Lover” into a surreal landscape brimming with riddles. On a mission for the conquest of a literal rose, The Lover meets The God of Love, Lady Reason, Shame, and their retinues, but as the fable unfolds, these allegorical figures begin to warp, revealing the fractured sense of identity at the core of all human experience. Meanwhile, the music itself for this opera in two acts and two epilogues—with its modernistic shrieks and wails, madrigalistic finery, auto-tuned didacticism, and lush Romanticism—freely beguiles, charms, and terrifies with no moral allegiances. Le Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun is the literary source for this new work. The cast features seven singing actors (three sopranos, mezzo, tenor, and two baritones). The ensemble includes clarinet, saxophone, piano/keyboard, electric guitar, harp, percussion, violin/viola, cello, and live electronics.Bare stage. THE DREAMER enters, accompanied by a violinist.Some say that dreams are flimsy doublespeak,And that we, once sleep has pulled its heavy blinds,Masquerade in fancy and deceitConjured by our thoughtless dreaming minds.But may we not protest this condemnation?For dreams contain much more than artful lies,And, aside from granting nighttime recreation,May edify, illumine, prophesize…Prophetic visions are the most celebrated types of dreams. The most common types of dreams include: being chased or pursued; the feeling of flying; the feeling of falling; and erotic fantasies. All of which will be relevant for us tonight. Because this is no ordinary dream: this is a love story!Enter THE GOD OF LOVE, voice processed with reverb, accompanied by clarinet and saxophone.And who better to officiate than the God of Love?A joie et a deduit t'atorne:Amors n'a cure d'ome morne.[“Adorn your self with joy and pleasure: Love cares not for the morose.”]Sounds better in French, doesn't it?Enter LADY REASON, voice processed with a vocoder, accompanied by the percussionist on marimba.But the flames of desire can be doused by good sense. Tell us, Lady Reason!Love is a mental illness afflicting its victims with distorted perception. And their suffering will not be lessened until love is renounced!Enter SHAME, voice processed with distortion. accompanied by electric guitar.Love is a fraudA hymn that's fit for a junkyardEnter Shame, an emissary from the gut to foil both the head (i.e. LADY REASON) and the heart (i.e. THE GOD OF LOVE).THE GOD OF LOVE, LADY REASON, and SHAME stand assembled. Cello and harp join the band.Behold: your allegorical dramatis personae! The requisite assembly for a love story. Which elemental force will prevail? (Indicating GOD OF LOVE) your yen for romance? (Indicating LADY REASON) your faculties of logic? (Indicating SHAME:) your urge for self-annihilation? All will be revealed in your dream. But first… you’ll have to fall asleep.◼LADY REASON, having banished THE ROSE, glares at THE LOVER haughtily.(To THE DREAMER) Who is that??Weren't you listening during the prologue?I am Lady Reason. And you are a fool, to succumb to the pangs of love, that weakness which preys on degraded minds! Fear not, I have come to instruct you on how to renounce this rose for good!I don't want to renounce it!!Tell me, do the wounds in your breast not smart?Yes…Well then, do you not wish to be cured of your affliction?I don't know…You don't know? How is it possible that you should hesitate to choose between anguished tumult and good sense?I don't know! I don't know what's going on!A snippet of the songlike, romantic ROSE THEME is played by the violinist.I looked into this mirror… and I saw this rose… and I heard this music; (ROSE theme continues)… this beautiful, sad music…There is no such thing as “sad music”! Music cannot be sad, or frightened, or happy, or confused, it cannot indicate some state that it feels, it is not sentient! I understand perfectly the source of your distress.LADY REASON cues up the band, who dutifully accompany her with an expressionless rendition of the ROSE THEME.You hear an establishing harmony, over which a dissonant motif is played; and then, because auditory learning is dominated by statistical exposure, as soon as you hear this motif repeat once, you develop an expectation that it will continue to repeat; and then when the relationship between the motif and the harmony increases in dissonance, you begin to expect not just repetition but resolution; and in this continuously provoked expectation for something that continues to be withheld, you begin to experience a psychological frustration that you associate with your vulgar cravings for sexual consummation; and so as the vectors of harmony, melody, and sex converge upon your feeble mind, you attribute personal meaning and uniqueness to that which is completely arbitrary, conventional, and meaningless!The band melts into the ROSE THEMEwith sensuous expressivity.(Transfixed) Yes, I hear it… it wants to resolve!(To band) Stop that!!The band falls silent.(To THE LOVER) Music does not want anything, it does not have agency! And neither will you, so long as you remain in the thrall of these sentimental excesses.The percussionist begins an ostinato on marimba.Music and love: twin sicknesses which hijack the emotions and override the mind! And yet, there do exist virtuous alternatives to the depravity which oppresses you.Lady Reason's Symmetrical VirelaiLove that's born of a sound mindSings with a voice just;This vulgarLoveWill dull yourSenses with moist lustAnd with mere noise unrefined.(Spoken) First alternative: platonic love.Love that comes to theeVia amityCan bestowJoy as free of sinAs a cadence inMi-re-do.The harp and guitar add a “mi-re-do” motif to the ostinato.For in firm friendship is twinedRectitude with trust,And this pureLoveMay rid yourSoul of its disgust-ing urges better declined.(Spoken) Second alternative: maternal love.Love can manifestAs a God-professedDebt you owe,That's by rote conferredAs each note in yourTwelve-tone row.The clarinet and saxophone play a twelve-tone row above the ostinato.For womankind by designTo her begats mustDeliverLoveTo give herSpecies a chance: thusSaith injunction divine.(Spoken) Third alternative: universal love.Love like this permitsAll to warm in itsHoly glow;Running like a chro-matic scale o’erAll we know.The violin and cello weave a tumbling chromatic scale around and above the ostinato.When to the whole of mankindYou nobly entrustAll of yourLove,The thrall you’reUnder will then rustAnd your heart's chains will unbind.The band launches into simultaneous do-re-mi motif, twelve-tone row, and chromatic scales, chaotically clashing above the marimba ostinato.Love that's born of a sound mindSings with a voice just;This vulgarLoveWill dull yourSenses with moist lustAnd with mere noise unrefined.End aria (marimba ostinato continues).Reason vs. Love #1Cleave to the pursuit of this rose, and you will find yourself degraded and bereft! But this garden need not be a hateful prison of vice: follow me, and you will find it a paradise of order and cultivation!Yeah… ok!(To THE LOVER) Having a change of heart are we?This has nothing to do with her “heart” (Singing) She is in her right mind.Yeah! (Singing) I am in my right mind!(Singing) You are in your “right mind”? (Spoken) What a charming notion!Come: (singing) the path of reason is the true path.The path of reason is the true path…Happy are those who flee from fervor.(More persuaded) Happy are those who flee from fervor…Love is a feeble trick!Before THE LOVER can repeat this, THE GOD OF LOVE's voice floats on from offstage.Love…!What was that?Nothing!The GOD OF LOVE's reverberated voice floats back in, amidst lush music.Outrageus est qui plus demande, [“Outrageous is he who demands more”]Who has the heart in his command…The marimba ostinato resurfaces as LADY REASON doggedly retakes the musical foreground.Your heart is arbitrarily associated with love due to mere physiological symptoms and nothing more!THE GOD OF LOVE continues interrupting LADY REASON as he enters and draws closer.With a golden key, fermeré [“close”]They heart, ton coeur I will lock away…Your heart is just a lump of muscle prone to palpitations and arrhythmia.Et si a mout grant poest, [“And this gives it great power”]Thy heart to keep in my treasure chest!You may follow your “heart” and be a fool, or you may follow me and be reasonable!THE LOVER may briefly waver between her options, before capitulating to THE GOD OF LOVE.(Singing) Confés en fui, O Sire, merci! [“I confess everything, Sire, mercy”]My heart is yours until it be ripped from me.Oh, for heaven's sake!Par mon chef, these words que sage [“By my head”]Restore my faith in thy homage.Vassal, rise! Se il vos plet, [“If you please”]Approach once more le Rosier. [“The rosebush”]◼Scene 3: Lady Reason's Second Try. The percussionist plays a slow jazzy shuffle.LADY REASON enters in disguise as a sexy torch singer. While she is perfectly confident of this disguise, it doesn't actually do anything to mask her identity (e.g., a cheap-looking blond wig askew over her headpiece or a bustier tied sloppily over her regular costume).Darling, the first time I saw youMy prefrontal cortex flooded with dopamineI felt an increase in stress hormone productionFor the most chemically compatible specimen I've seen.Oh, baby, when you touch me,Acetylcholine fills my nuclei,Neural arousal in your preoptic area draws you near,We just can't deny…Oxytocin proliferates in my hypothalamus,I'm helplessly star-struckVasopressin is released from our pituitary glandsAs we start to fuck!Excuse me??LADY REASON triumphantly throws off her disguise. An element or two of her “torch singer” costume remains intact and will stay for the rest of the opera.It is I, Lady Reason!Oh, right.Now that I have experienced love, I can say with certitude that it is an empty, filthy, exasperating intoxication!You can't experience love just by faking it!Of course you can! I simply resolved to become momentarily infatuated. And as I suspected, this was easily accomplished. The tritest physical charms such as (she sizes THE LOVER up) an optimal waist-to-hip ratio, or well-shaped breasts, or (becoming a bit flustered) luminous eyes… coupled with a few tiresomely “romantic” character traits such as (again flustered) the bravery of embarking on a treacherous quest of passion… (snaps back to herself)… are criterion enough to arouse these demeaning feelings!I thought you didn't have feelings.That's not true!A snippet of the ROSE THEMEis heard.(RE: the music) That is true…(Exasperated) As I have already demonstrated: music cannot tell the truth, it cannot lie, it has no basis in objectivity. And neither does “being in love”!What would you know about being in love?Says the one in love with an inanimate object! You are in the grips of a dumb infatuation, some voiceless brainless animal instinct (her voice takes on emotion) for which you've heartlessly abandoned me.LADY REASON may appear momentarily disquieted at her own emotional outburst.(Coolly recovering) That is to say, for which you've abandoned your reason.“Reason” has nothing to do with this.Not so! There is no real incompatibility between the pleasures of love and reason. When a sexual act is motivated by rationality—and there do exist rational reasons to copulate—then that act may… (euphemistically) “run its course”… even if this entails a momentary cessation of higher intellectual functions when the pleasure becomes… overpowering. After all, falling asleep incurs loss of rational control, and yet you're asleep and dreaming at this very moment. If sleep is a harmless and even virtuous temporary interruption in the supremacy of reason, why not the well-ordered sex act?You're really weirding me out.The percussionist begins an ostinato on vibraphone.I am trying to show you more alternatives to the muck in which you insist on wallowing! The love you are infected with is the love that is found in hearts that are corrupt and diseased: the love that comes from Lady Fortune.Scene 4: Lady Reason's Collapsing SestinaFlinging light like coins for paupers, the moonFlaunts stolen radiance in her gleaming face,Then sinks into the extinguishing nightTo rise again bright as when she last rose.So Lady Fortune now deals shining love,Now dull misery, as her wheel doth turn.And you, shrinking and charging in turn,Creep thief-like, by the light of the moon,Towards a flickering vision of loveProffered by Fortune's beckoning face;Yet each time you draw near to your rose,You are flung bereft into the night.What is this foolish quest, O Knight?What vow compels you to return?Could there be, besides this veiled roseFor which you continually moon,A truer and uncovered face,That reflects, mirror-like, your love?Fortune tempts you with loveShe swears will change the nightTo day, but mark her face:One cheek of luster will turnTo one blotched as the moon,As thorns blemish a rose.Yet in you aroseThe fetters of loveSo that like the moonLocked in circling nightYou ever must turnTowards a turning face.FaceIt, your roseWill turnYour loveInto a nightWithout a moon.And now you must face the truth of your love,And know that your rose, like that sphere which at nightEternally turns, shall ever be fatally, woefully, wholly ungraspably, always unreachably ever remote as the moon.End aria: vibraphone continues.Scene 5: Reason vs. Love #2You are beautiful, strong, and brave! But why waste this bravery, this strength, this beauty on one so unworthy? When you have the esteem of a priestess of enlightenment?LADY REASON is at the brink of making a tender confession—when suddenly, the voice of THE GOD OF LOVE resounds from offstage. Unlike in Act I, his tender romanticism is now infected with outbursts of distorted noise.Granz doulours to those will come [“Great sorrow”]Who the pleasures of love doth dare to shun!LADY REASON hastily resumes, trying to hold on to the attention of THE LOVER.I am not asking you to “shun” love. And as for pleasure, what could be more pleasurable than two minds meeting in harmony?THE GOD OF LOVE enters singing. His costume is newly armored: glittering spikes on his high heels, a breastplate over his robes, etc.A mal chief puissent il venir: [“To a bad end may they come”]They'll meet their end in pain and fear!You need fear nothing in virtue's embrace!Tant les haz, I hate them so, [“I hate them so”]I'll crush their skulls beneath my bow!Why heed this tyrant's cruel command,When hallowed wisdom grants her hand?THE GOD OF LOVE, now fully onstage, draws a weapon and holds/points it menacingly at THE LOVER's throat. IDLENESS and PLEASURE re-enter with THE GOD OF LOVE, flanking him.Ne fai pas dongier de toi rendre; [“Don't make difficulty in surrendering”]Surrender, or I will bleed thee raw!Note: Old French text by Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun, from Le Roman de la Rose trans. Soper. All other text by Kate Soper.