Articles
5–32 Emancipation or exploitation? Gender liberation and adult musicals in 1970s
Studies in
Musical
New York
Elizabeth L. Wollman
33–50 Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre
Marc Napolitano
Theatre
51–60 Fiddler on the Roof: considerations in a new age
Charles Eliot Mehler
61–81 Representation of Clytemnestra and Cassandra in Taneyev’s Oresteia
Anastasia Belina
83–100 Flooding the concrète: Clastoclysm and the notion of the ‘continuum’ as a
conceptual and musical basis for a postdramatic music-theatre performance
Demetris Zavros
Re: Act
101–108 Detached signifiers, dead babies and demon dwarves: Bieito’s Dutchman
Kara McKechnie
109–120 Reviews
Advisory Board
Stephen Banfield – University of Bristol, UK
Geoffrey Block – University of Puget Sound, USA
Tim Carter – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Jon Alan Conrad – University of Delaware, USA
Robert Gordon – Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
John Graziano – City University of New York, USA
Trevor Herbert – Open University, UK
Kim Kowalke – University of Rochester, USA
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Editorial
George Burrows and Dominic Symonds
and we are delighted to bring you some of the material that was aired at
that marvellous event, reflecting the generosity of our hosts whose interest
in and support of the field of the journal have been unprecedented and
unwavering.
While last year’s Leeds conference had a particular character that is
captured in the range of articles herein, this year’s conference took place
at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, where an
equally varied array of papers were displayed, appropriately enough focus-
ing on Music in Gotham – the Broadway musical. We hope to bring you
some of the papers delivered at this conference in future issues of the jour-
nal, alongside other papers from the many and varied conferences that
have represented the area of study in recent months and in forthcoming
events. In the meantime, we do hope you enjoy reading the papers in this
issue, and look forward to your continued contributions and support.
Abstract Keywords
Because the 1960s sexual revolution preceding the gay and women’s liberation off-Broadway
movements was largely defined by straight men, the increased sexual freedom women’s liberation
that came with liberation often translated, especially for women, into the sub- gay liberation
stitution of one kind of exploitation for another. The ‘adult’ musicals (musicals Oh! Calcutta!
featuring nudity and simulated sex) that were faddish off-Broadway in the Let My People Come
1970s grappled with the country’s changing sexual mores, and many reflected Mod Donna
contemporary struggles for gender equality. Yet because of the strong sexual The Faggot
content of adult musicals, messages of liberation were often lost on audiences
who were simply interested in vicariously experiencing reverberations of the
sexual revolution. This article examines the ways adult musicals translated
messages championed by the women’s and gay liberation movements, as well as
the ways that actors in musicals like Let My People Come and Oh! Calcutta!,
as well as their audiences, negotiated interconnected messages of sexual free-
dom and exploitation.
The sexual revolution was built on equal measures of hypocrisy and honesty, 1. I am grateful to
equality and exploitation. Indeed, the individual strands contain mixed moti- Stephen Amico,
Susan Tenneriello
vations and ideological charges. Even the most heartfelt or best intentions and two anonymous
did not always work out for the good when put into practice by mere peer reviewers for
humans with physical and psychological frailties. their comments on
previous drafts of
(Bailey 1994: 257–58) this article. I am also
grateful to the many
A curious legacy of the 1960s sexual revolution was the ‘adult’ musical, a people who agreed
to be interviewed;
number of which cropped up in New York City, occasionally on and espe- special thanks go to
cially off- and off-off-Broadway, through the 1970s. Adult musicals gener- Mod Donna composer
ally distinguished themselves from other types of musical in their reliance Susan Hulsman
Bingham for her
on strong sexual content in the form of any or all of the following: full- music, memories and
frontal nudity; simulated sexual activity; and frequent sexually suggestive insight.
or explicit dialogue, musical numbers or dance numbers. With few excep-
tions, representatives of the subgenre were reviled by theatre critics, who
alternately attacked them either for going too far in the direction of hard-
core pornography, or, conversely, of being so preachy about contemporary
sexuality that they were not erotic enough. Some theatre producers wor-
ried that at their most explicit, adult musicals were not terribly distinct
from the live sex shows and pornographic films that had begun to proliferate
2. See for example Reif in Times Square by the late 1960s. Nevertheless, adult musicals appealed
(1983), Rich (1989),
Atkinson (1990),
to other producers – especially young, up-and-coming ones – because they
Bordman (2001) and were surprisingly easy to cast with young, eager unknowns, were usually
Ward (2005). cheap to stage, and, of course, were not difficult to costume. And even the
3. Coined around 1960 ones that earned the nastiest reviews usually made money. Clearly, specta-
in the Village Voice, tors were more interested in the nudity and simulated sex that these
the term ‘off-off-
Broadway’ initially
musicals promised than they were in what critics thought about their
denoted plays or orchestrations, scenic design or dramatic flow.
workshops staged Few adult musicals were published or recorded before they closed. The
in small spaces
anywhere in
subgenre as a whole dwindled significantly by the early 1980s as the social
Manhattan, for which and political climate grew more conservative, and seems to have gone
actors received little entirely out of fashion by mid-decade, when fears surrounding the AIDS
or no pay. The term,
however, quickly took
epidemic subdued free sexual expression. Virtually no scholarly work exists
on more ideological on adult musicals; historians and journalists who mention them at all
associations, tend to emphasize their dated music and subject matter, amateur produc-
especially since many
off-off-Broadway
tion values, or the seemingly mercenary desires of producers to capitalize
practitioners had no on the American public’s fascination with sex at a time when sexual
desire to cross into mores were shifting dramatically across the country.2 Yet while they have
more commercial
realms. For further
been dismissed as trifles that collectively amounted to the musical-theatre
discussion of the term equivalent of streaking – a forgettable fad befitting a silly decade – adult
and its ideological musicals represent aspects of 1970s American culture at their messiest
associations see
Bottoms (2006) and
and most confused, and thus perhaps at their most honest. These musicals
Crespy (2003). reflect the country’s rapidly changing, often contradictory, attitudes about
gender and sexuality at a time when the sexual revolution had given way
to the gay and women’s liberation movements.
Beginnings
Aesthetically speaking, the adult musical owes much to burlesque for its
bawdy subject matter and its structure. While a few adult musicals – for
example the 1970 off-Broadway production Stag Movie – featured full-
length plots, most were written in revue form, in which songs, skits and
dances were loosely thematically interconnected. Yet the adult musical is
most closely connected with the overarching aesthetics and idealism of the
off-off-Broadway experimental theatre of the 1960s.
At a physical and philosophical distance from the Great White Way,
off-off-Broadway inhabited roughly the same geographical area as its
immediate predecessor, the off-Broadway realm, but was freer in terms
of its organization and objectives.3 The movement began in the late
1950s in reaction to off-Broadway’s increasing commercialism, and
thus stretched even further than off-Broadway had in terms of scope and
experimentation (Kauffmann 1979: 37). In its heyday in the 1960s, off-
off-Broadway was populated by individuals and collectives devoted to
developing artistically challenging work in alternative, non-commercial
spaces. Practitioners pondered potential roles for the theatre in a tumul-
tuous nation; many off-off-Broadway companies devoted themselves to
using theatre as a tool for socio-political change by blending political
and aesthetic radicalism, pushing the boundaries of what was deemed
theatrically appropriate, and encouraging audiences to engage directly
with – and thereby become part of – performances (Banham 1995: 647).
While Broadway entered something of a creative standstill in the 1960s,
6 Elizabeth L. Wollman
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off-off-Broadway was invigorated by the anti-war movement and the 4. For details on the
development and
counterculture, and exerted unprecedented stylistic influence on the impact of Hair, see
theatrical mainstream well into the 1970s. Horn (1991) and
When it opened at the Biltmore Theater on 29 April 1968, Hair: The Wollman (2006).
American Tribal Love-Rock Musical broke ground as the first critically and
commercially successful rock musical to land on Broadway. This musical
served as a linchpin that linked the commercial potential of the theatrical
mainstream with the experimentalism of off-off-Broadway; in this
respect, its influence cannot be overemphasized. Featuring a book and
lyrics by Open Theatre members Gerome Ragni and James Rado, and an
innovative score by jazz and R&B musician Galt MacDermott, Hair was
originally produced off-Broadway in 1967 as the inaugural production of
Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre. Recast by La MaMa director Tom O’Horgan
for its move uptown to Broadway, Hair retained plenty of its rough-edged
off-off-Broadway sensibility, including its disjunct structure, disregard of
the traditional fourth wall, hodgepodge of left-leaning social and political
messages, emphasis on communal experience both in rehearsal and per-
formance, and use, in the first act finale, of male and female full-frontal
nudity.4
Stage nudity remained relatively taboo both in the experimental and
commercial realms through the early 1960s. This would begin to change
when the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Peter Weiss’ The
Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the
Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (commonly
known as Marat/Sade) opened to enthusiastic reviews at Broadway’s
Martin Beck Theatre on 27 December 1965. The production, directed by
Peter Brook, created a mild sensation not only because it featured ‘a real-
istic tableau of guillotined heads, buckets of […] blood being poured
down drains, [and] an actress using her long hair as a whip’, but also
because it allowed audiences a glimpse of the naked backside of Ian
Richardson as Marat, as he emerged from a bathtub beneath the stage
(Drutman 1966: 1).
Stage nudity became increasingly fashionable, especially off- and off-
off-Broadway, among playwrights and directors interested in honest depic-
tions of the human condition. Playwright Robert Patrick, an active member
of the 1960s Caffe Cino scene, remembers, ‘when we first started putting
nudity into plays, it was in situations where people would be nude in real
life. So when people were making love in my plays, I had them nude! Who
makes love in armour?’ (Patrick 2005) As off-off-Broadway continued to
exert stylistic influence on the mainstream, nudity became a familiar, if
still controversial, feature on both fringe and commercial stages by the
turn of the decade, and arguably helped draw audiences to such plays as
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Broadway, 1968), Scuba Duba (off-Broadway,
1967) and Tom Paine (off-off-Broadway, 1968). The nude scene in Hair,
then, was representative of the fringe’s attempts to close the gap between
audience and performers, and to use theatre as a tool with which to
explore socially relevant subject matter, including that which – like sexu-
ality – was traditionally considered taboo.
What helped set this particular nude scene apart from many of its
experimental predecessors was its joyful quality. Writing in 1969, New York
Times critic Walter Kerr lamented that ‘in virtually all of our uninhibited
plays, sex and nudity are associated with dirt, disease, bloodshed and
death’, and that ‘the last thing any of these plays is is playful’ (Kerr 1969:
26 B). On the contrary, the nudity in Hair, which occurred at the Act 1
finale during the re-enactment of a human be-in, was intended merely as
‘a beautiful comment about the young generation’ (Ward 2002). The
dimly-lit scene, which featured male and female cast members undulating
happily beneath a sheer, flower-printed sheet, was an attempt at theatrical
realism: hippies espoused the body beautiful, so why shouldn’t actors play-
ing hippies do the same? It also happened to be entirely celebratory, which
likely added to its appeal.
Hair’s extraordinary commercial success resulted in countless imita-
tions, and thus more theatrical nudity, not only in straight plays but now,
also, in musicals. By the end of the 1968–69 season, nudity had attained
such faddishness, especially off-and off-off-Broadway, that critic Otis L.
Guernsey, Jr., was prompted to gripe,
Oh! Calcutta!
The first adult musical, Oh! Calcutta!, opened off-Broadway on 17 June
1969. An ‘erotic revue’ devised for ‘thinking voyeurs’ (Tallmer 1969:
n.p.), Oh! Calcutta! was the brainchild of esteemed theatre critic Kenneth
Tynan, who solicited a number of writers he admired to ‘dramatize their
own sexual fantasies or observations on sexuality’ (Tynan 1969: 1). The
result was a collection of sketches contributed anonymously by writers
and playwrights including Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi,
Sherman Yellin, John Lennon and Tynan himself.
Oh! Calcutta! reflected off-off-Broadway’s influence not only in show-
casing playwrights like Shepard, Melfi and Beckett, but also in Tynan’s
interest in ‘taboo’ subject matter, and his choice of director. Former Open
Theatre associate Jacques Levy was enlisted to shape the songs and skits
into an evening’s entertainment. During the rehearsal period, Levy led the
cast through a series of experimental exercises, including a number of
encounter sessions designed to ‘enable each actor to accept the fact of his
own body and to work comfortably with his fellow actors – without
clothes’ (Dunbar 1969: 40). Musically speaking, Oh! Calcutta! took a nod
from Hair’s contemporary sound: the score was composed and, with a few
full-cast song-and-dance numbers as exceptions, performed by a rock trio
called The Open Window, featuring Peter Schickele, pre-P.D.Q. Bach fame.
8 Elizabeth L. Wollman
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I had read about Oh! Calcutta! and I knew who Kenneth Tynan was. I called
my agent and said, ‘I want to audition.’ He said, ‘Are you, crazy?’ And I said,
‘No, I want to audition.’ So he got me the audition. Jacques Levy, the direc-
tor, had done experimental theatre in New York. And the list of people
involved as writers? I knew those people! I just had a feeling that this was
going to be something.
(Enten 2005)
Tynan’s interest in ‘elevating’ his show above the then-low status of bur-
lesque is clear in the finished product, which featured only a single sketch –
‘Was It Good for You Too?’ credited to humorist Dan Greenburg – that was
clearly rooted in the burlesque tradition (Barrett 1973: 35). This Masters
and Johnson send-up featured a Marx brothers-inspired medical team doc-
umenting the mating habits of male and female volunteers as madness
erupts in the laboratory. A vast majority of the sketches, however,
attempted more deeply-layered musings about sexuality. Topics included
10 Elizabeth L. Wollman
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Unlike Oh! Calcutta!, Stag Movie featured gay and lesbian characters and, as
the lyrics above imply, ponder the possibility of female sexual desire, if not
in the most progressive of ways. Nevertheless, in part because of its
reliance on gender stereotypes – especially that of the mincing, effeminate
gay man – Stag Movie became the target of the Gay Liberation Front, an
activist group of gay men and lesbians that formed shortly after the 1969
Stonewall riots.
In a move that seems laughably naive in retrospect, the producers of
Stag Movie had invited the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) to a critics’ preview
on 2 January 1971, in hopes that the musical would catch on with a gay
audience. Ensconced in the balcony, approximately 30 GLF members
began heckling almost as soon as Stag Movie began; the group grew increas-
ingly agitated by the reliance on gay stereotypes and objected to the fact that
the lead female character was completely naked for most of the show, while
the male characters appeared naked more infrequently (Anon. 1971).
12 Elizabeth L. Wollman
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Heavy use of the word ‘faggot’ throughout the show didn’t help matters 5. For far more extensive
information on
much (Newburge 2006a). twentieth-century
The hissing, booing and catcalls – including chants like ‘Sexist pigs!’ gay activism than
‘Dirty old men!’ and ‘Raise your level of consciousness!’ – built to such a this article allows,
see Marcus (1992),
degree that the actors eventually stopped trying to recite their lines. Duberman (1993),
Some cast members attempted to maintain order, while others joined the Kaiser (1997) and
melee and began shouting at the protesters from the stage until the Loughery (1998).
police arrived to remove the protestors and allow to the musical to con-
tinue (Anon. a. 1971).
In his review, Barnes admitted that while such disruptions are gener-
ally disrespectful, this one was ‘a welcome diversion from the seemingly
endless tedium’ of Stag Movie, which he called ‘dispiriting’, ‘dismal’ and ‘as
erotic as cold mulligatawny soup laced with frozen porridge’ (Barnes
1971: 39). Despite a near-universal critical drubbing, Stag Movie ran for
several months due to a break on the theatre rental arranged by the pro-
ducer, and word-of-mouth about the protests (Anon. b. 1971). Of course,
the nude Adrienne Barbeau – whose ample ‘mammary equipment’ caused
many a critic to interrupt his review mid-scathe in order to blather blush-
ingly and with something approaching genuine awe – probably also
helped keep Stag Movie running longer than it might have otherwise
(Lewis 1971: n.p.).
14 Elizabeth L. Wollman
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While a curious few questioned why the number ‘Art Song’ – in which 6. One writer who did
question the presence
Catherine the Great sang in praise of bestiality – belonged in a revue about of Catherine the Great
gay life, some of the depictions in The Faggot drew ire among gay activists.6 was Duberman
As Bottoms points out, Carmines’ attempts to ‘underline the wrongs of (1973).
societal oppression by stressing the consequently seedy, secretive nature of
some gay lives’ was easily misinterpreted, and The Faggot thus generated
hot debate about the distinction between politics and art and the overall
message of the revue (Bottoms 2004: 359–60). Infuriated by what he saw
as the reinforcement of gay stereotypes, Martin Duberman wrote in The
New York Times that The Faggot
although I agree with Mr. Duberman’s political position regarding gay liber-
ation, in the case of ‘The Faggot’ he is not dealing with a political position
paper, but rather with a personal, idiosyncratic, quirky, highly subjective the-
ater piece […] I do not believe politics is art and I believe a confusion of those
two human activities is a dangerous and ultimately catastrophic misunder-
standing […] as a political entity, I am committed to gay liberation […] As
an artist, I am committed only to the absolute human truth as I see it. And
that truth is far more complicated than any party line, however noble, could
ever be.
(Carmines 1973: D12)
As the debate continued in the press and among activists, The Faggot ran at
the Truck and Warehouse for 203 performances. Doric Wilson, the play-
wright and founder of the gay theatre company TOSOS (The Other Side of
Silence), acknowledges that, while not without its problems, The Faggot
struck him as more liberating than the more overtly political gay theatre
typical of the time. ‘The Faggot meandered here and there and was ama-
teur and was meant to be’, he remembers. ‘But you came away […] feeling
deeply moved. And very proud that you were gay. And a little taller’
(Bottoms 2004: 361).
Claude’s friend Berger […] resolves that, before going to war, Claude will get
to […] sleep with Sheila, a member of the tribe who is in love with Berger.
Sheila is thus placed under enormous pressure, as Berger tries to persuade
her that it is her duty as a member of the free-love community, whether or
not she is attracted to Claude […] Sheila finally submits to sex with Claude,
and Claude – appetite sated – goes poignantly off to war. Hair thus staged a
bizarre variant on the age-old patriarchal right of men to use and trade
women as if they are property.
(Bottoms 2004: 212)
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walked in the Civil Rights and the peace movements, ‘turned on and dropped
out,’ lived in communes, and created theater events that flew in the face of the
linear, rational thought processes of our culture and led our audiences hollering
and singing into the streets…Gradually we began to notice that we were still
baking the bread, raising the children, and bringing coffee to the organizers of
the institutions both inside and outside of the mainstream. So we rebelled.
(Boesing 1996: 1012)
One of the first feminist theatre groups, the short-lived New Feminist
Theatre (NFT), was founded in New York by National Organization for
Women (NOW) activists Anselma Dell’Olio, Jaqui Ceballos and Myrna
Lamb. Lamb would become the group’s main playwright; their first perfor-
mance, at a Redstockings benefit at Washington Square Church in March
1969, featured three of her plays: What Have You Done for Me Lately, In the
Shadow of the Crematorium and Scyklon Z. The NFT organized a successful
NOW benefit in May of the same year, and presented new works on
Monday nights at the Village Gate until internal differences led to the
group’s demise (Rea 1972: 80–81).
The early 1970s saw the establishment, in New York and across the
country, of other women’s theatre collectives including It’s All Right to Be
Woman Theatre and the Westbeth Playwrights’ Feminist Collective. In
1972, a group of playwrights including Maria Irene Fornes, Megan Terry,
Rochelle Owens and Adrianne Kennedy founded the Women’s Theatre
Council, with the aim of encouraging the increased presence of women in all
areas of the theatre (Bemis 1987: 2). These companies had varying agendas
and philosophies, but most promoted social change not only with plays by
and about women, but also through a collective or collaborative approach
that encouraged communication, egalitarianism and shared experience.
Unfortunately, what many women’s theatre companies also had in
common was tremendous pressure – both interior and exterior – which led
to difficulties in making an immediate impact on the theatre landscape at
large. The painstakingly egalitarian, collaborative approach to theatre pre-
ferred by companies like It’s All Right to Be Woman Theatre proved mad-
deningly slow in practice, yet companies that relied on traditional
hierarchies often faced criticism from within and without for not trying
harder to counteract patriarchal models (Boesing 1996: 1021). Many
women’s theatre groups collapsed by the 1980s for these and a host of
other reasons, including inadequate funding, burnout and lack of profes-
sional experience (Bemis 1987: 3–4). If internal problems were not dam-
aging enough to women’s theatre collectives and the individuals behind
them, external pressures often took an additional toll.
The off-off-Broadway movement was often lauded by critics for its fresh-
ness and creativity in lieu of healthy budgets and workable performance
spaces. Yet when it came to women’s theatre, a perceived lack of profes-
sionalism was more often met with gruff impatience by the predominantly
male critical corps, which was not necessarily supportive of the women’s
movement, let alone women’s theatre. While much about off-off-Broadway
7. Very few women had remained artistically influential and commercially viable in New York City
attained recognition
for writing musicals
through the 1970s, theatre with a strong feminist bent did not prove espe-
in New York City by cially popular with critics or mainstream audiences.
1970, with the The conservative strictures and mainstream appeal of the musical the-
exception of Gretchen
Ford and Nancy
atre made it especially resistant to feminist influence. Thus it is notable
Cryer, whose first that one of the first overtly feminist pieces to appear in a commercial
effort, Now Is the Time house was the musical Mod Donna by NFT co-founder Myrna Lamb, with
for All Good Men, ran
off-Broadway at the
music by Susan Hulsman Bingham.7 Produced and directed by Joe Papp at
Lortel Theatre in the Public in 1970, the piece critiqued the ways that men and especially
1967. Mod Donna women are culturally conditioned to use sex as a weapon in their power
seems to be the first
musical by women
struggles. Despite the strong sexual content of Mod Donna, Papp chose to
to tackle human buck the trend and keep his actors clothed. ‘I feel it would be wrong, here’,
sexuality as primary he stated, when asked why the musical contained no nudity. ‘There is the
subject matter, at
least in New York.
nakedness of the idea, instead, a stripping away of things that are usually
left unsaid’ (Bender 1970: 79).
Narrated by an all-female Greek chorus and accompanied by an all-
female instrumental ensemble, Donna focuses on four characters: Jeff, a
wealthy company man; his bored, manipulative wife, Chris; his resentful
but toady employee, Charlie; and Charlie’s sexually pliant wife, Donna.
Early in Act 1, Jeff and Chris invite Donna to join their marital bed with
the aim of improving their sex life; in return, Jeff will see to it that Charlie
advances at the office. The set-up initially makes everyone happy, but then
Chris and Jeff grow bored with their sexual plaything and decide to rekin-
dle their marriage in Europe, alone. They attempt to pay Donna off and
send her back to Charlie, but she has become pregnant and refuses to
leave the wealthier couple’s opulent home. In the end, Jeff and Chris
depart abruptly, and a jealous Charlie murders Donna.
True to their traditional role, the Greek chorus informs the audience of
Donna’s murder and offers the moral of the story: until class and gender
inequalities are resolved, and people stop manipulating one another sexually,
the Donnas of the world will continue to die violent, senseless deaths. The
chorus then reprises ‘Liberation Song’, a tonally murky, rhythmically jagged
number that appears in varied form several times throughout the show:
As Mod Donna ends, the chorus faces the audience with fists raised, shout-
ing for liberation.
Lamb remembers that Mod Donna resonated with audience members, if
only because, as far as feminist theatre went, ‘it was the only game in
town!’ (Lamb 2007). Indeed, at least one review describes ‘wild cheering’
during performances (Brukenfeld 1970: 53). And the show received some
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positive reviews in the press. Barnes argued that while artistically incon-
sistent, Donna was, politically speaking, ‘one of the most pertinent and
stimulating offerings’ the Public Theatre had produced to date (Barnes
1970: 48). Although slightly more ambivalent, Dick Brukenfeld for the
Village Voice noted his appreciation for the musical’s anger, courage and
wit (Brukenfeld 1970: 53). Yet a majority of reviews for what the press
corps quickly labelled ‘the women’s lib musical’ were resolutely negative,
and critics frequently moved beyond the piece to mock feminism in general.
Papp obviously anticipated controversy. In his programme notes,
which read curiously like a circuitous apology, he explained that Donna
was not about feminism:
Nevertheless, many critics found Mod Donna – not to mention the move-
ment Papp insisted it had nothing to do with – most unpalatable indeed.
In his review of Mod Donna for the Post, Jerry Tallmer lamented the fact
that Lamb had not addressed ‘the woman question’ as effectively as
Strindberg, Ibsen and Coward had, but noted that at least the lead female
characters were attractive: ‘Sharon Laughlin as Chris has a beautifully
modeled face and a Mona Lisa smile, which helps […] and April Shawhan
as Donna is just a trifle flat as an actress though not indeed – well, Sisters,
I’m not going to say it’ (Tallmer 1970: 23). Kerr for The New York Times
begins his review by deriding feminism:
I am glad to learn from Joseph Papp’s program notes for ‘Mod Donna’ […]
that the evening is not to be construed as a pro-feminist entertainment. I am
glad because if it were a feminist entertainment, anything I might have to say
against it would be taken as male-oriented, biased, vengeful, nearsighted,
thick-headed and disloyal to that half of the population which has been mak-
ing so much noise lately and to which I have hitherto been so intensely
devoted. I’m off the hook, right?
(Kerr 1970: 1)
Like Tallmer, Kerr finds solace in the attractiveness of the female cast
members: ‘Sharon Laughlin is cool enough to have been carved from cold
cream, with faint wisps of hair brushing her ivory cheeks’; April Shawhan
is ‘a lovely thing to look at in her pink silk and pink breasts’, even though
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Sex sells […] and titillating images of bra-less women and sexual freedom
made for livelier stories than statistics about women’s wages and the lack of
affordable childcare. The mainstream media – and often for reasons no more
Machiavellian than a desire to attract viewers or readers – often treated
women’s liberation and sexual freedom interchangeably. But opponents of
women’s liberation also purposely conflated women’s liberation with the
sexual revolution to brand the women’s movement as radical, immoral, and
antifamily. [The] conflation of the women’s movement with the sexual revo-
lution […] reached beyond the ranks of avowed antifeminists. Many who
were […] sympathetic to the claims of the women’s movement found the
sexual revolution troubling, and the conflation of movements made it easier
for them to draw a line between ‘reasonable’ demands for decent wages and
(as they saw it) the sex-obliterating role reversals and illegitimate intrusions
into the ‘private’ spheres of home, marriage, and the family demanded by
‘radical’ women’s libbers.
(Bailey 2004: 116–17)
The resultant slew of mixed messages about feminism and its relationship
to sexuality fuelled the confusion that was – and continues to be – played
out in the cultural landscape at large.
Because adult musicals were strongly influenced by off-off-Broadway
theatre, many creators attempted to infuse their works with appropriate
social or political messages. Yet as noted above, when it came to gender
issues, the fringe itself was not especially liberated by the time adult musi-
cals appeared. As a result, messages about gay and especially female liber-
ation tended to get lost amid the jiggle of naked bodies that was a selling
point for adult musicals.
Let My People Come began its run at the Village Gate in January 1973.
In a shrewd move, Oesterman refused to allow critics to see the show
unless they paid for tickets themselves, and never announced an official
opening. Word spread fast; enough critics griped in the press about the
nudie show they’d been shut out of that Let My People Come soon became a
hot ticket in New York and beyond: during its run, the musical spawned
national and international tours, an original cast album, and spin-off pro-
ductions in cities including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Toronto, where
it ran for a decade (Gussow 1974: 52).
In keeping with the off-off-Broadway ancestry of adult musicals, the
songs and sketches from Let My People Come were written largely in
response to conversations between the original cast and the creative team
during intense encounter sessions. Wilson recalls,
We had the auditions and we said, ‘We don’t really have a show. We have a
couple songs, we have an idea, and we’re going to write it around you guys.
It’ll be based on what you think. I don’t want you to say anything you don’t
believe, because that will come across. It has to be honest, or nobody’s gonna
come to the show.’ We had five months of rehearsal, five nights a week. We
had encounter sessions, where we would all talk. Then I would go home and
write a song for somebody, because I knew what they sounded like.
(Wilson 2005)
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As the two men repeated the line ‘I’m Gay’ at the end of the song, they
were joined by the rest of the cast. The number, according to original cast
member and assistant choreographer Tobie Columbus, was one of the
strongest in the show, often bringing the house down and spectators to
tears (Columbus 2006).
To their credit, the all-male creative team of Let My People Come also
devised several numbers purporting to represent women’s perspectives.
Yet these numbers seem to lean more in favour of titillation than hon-
est representation. Take, for example, ‘And She Loved Me’, a number
depicting a lesbian love affair. Because there were no lesbians in the
cast with whom to confer, Wilson turned to media representations of
lesbians on which to base this song. ‘There was a scene in – was it
Killing of Sister George? It was some movie of the time that had a lesbian
scene in it’, he recalls. ‘I thought, “I’m going to use that as my example
in my head.” So I didn’t talk to any lesbians or go through any of that’
(Wilson 2005). Yet, as Karen Hollinger points out, lesbian characters
have traditionally been depicted through a heterosexual and highly
critical lens as ‘sinister villains, victims of mental illness, cultural
freaks, or pornographic sexual turn-ons for a male audience’ (Hollinger
1998: 10).
The last applies to ‘And She Loved Me’, the lyrics and original staging of
which reflect lesbians primarily as seen through the male gaze. The fact
that the women begin and end their lovemaking by weeping in one
another’s arms, for example, is likely indicative of Wilson’s reliance on
mainstream depictions of lesbians for inspiration:
Columbus recalls that the song was sung by two fully-clothed women who
flanked the stage, while two other women danced naked centre-stage
under soft lighting to give the impression of lovemaking. In Columbus’
view, the number was not intended to be crude or titillating, but, instead,
impressionistic and ‘quite beautiful’ (Columbus 2006). Nevertheless, it is
telling that the sole lesbian number was performed in the nude and
depicted women weeping after experiencing forbidden love, while ‘I’m Gay’
featured two fully-clothed men who, upon proclaiming their sexuality,
were joined in cheery solidarity by the rest of the cast. In short, ‘And She
Loved Me’ emphasized sex while ‘I’m Gay’ emphasized the struggle for
acceptance and respect.
The tendency to conflate feminism with the sexual revolution is demon-
strated in the number ‘Give It to Me’, which Wilson wrote with a particular
cast member in mind. Even in his recollections of this actress, Wilson
associates the women’s movement with free sexuality. ‘We had a girl in the
show who […] was very sexually liberated, sort of a women’s libber’, he
remembers. ‘She had a certain look about her – dungaree jacket, open
shirt, “I’ll take home anybody” kind of attitude. So I came up with “Give It
To Me,” and she was terrific with it because she really believed it. She
could pull it off ” (Wilson 2005).
In ‘Give It To Me’, a woman voices her desire for a man who is terrific
in and out of bed:
I want a man who loves to fuck and can keep it up for days
Who’s clever and smart and can make me come in a thousand different ways
I want a man who knows how to love and loves all that sex can be
And when he’s driving me out of my mind I wanna know he’s fucking me
In keeping with the theme of Let My People Come, this song purports to
offer a woman’s perspective on desire, and can thus certainly be read as
empowering. Nevertheless, as the only number directly reflective of
second-wave feminism, ‘Give It to Me’ can also be read to imply that for all
their complaining, what women really want is a good, old-fashioned roll in
the hay.
Perhaps the most problematic number, from a feminist perspective, is
the first one that Wilson wrote for Let My People Come. Composed before
casting began, ‘Come in My Mouth’ was originally performed by Tobie
Columbus, who sat alone onstage in a red dress, crooning into a micro-
phone while bathed in light from a single pin-spot. Whereas much of the
content of Let My People Come was meant to be satirical – comparatively
serious declarations of sexual freedom like ‘I’m Gay’ notwithstanding –
‘Come in My Mouth’ was intended to be overtly erotic (Columbus 2006).
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The song, and the way it was performed, thus borrows a great deal from
the aural techniques common to the pornographic films that had become
fashionable by the early 1970s.
In ‘Come in My Mouth’, the singer describes in graphic detail the fellatio
she professes to have been waiting all day to perform on her partner.
Accompanied by a mechanical ostinato and the same ethereal, synthe-
sized noodlings typical of just about every porn film soundtrack ever com-
posed, the singer lavishly praises her man, all the while asserting his
dominance over her:
The song ends as the keyboard fades out and the singer erupts in orgasmic
moans.
The primal reaction of the female singer is typical of much hard-core
porn. Whereas male arousal in pornography is visually obvious – and the
‘money shot’ thus fetishized as proof of satisfaction – the female orgasm is
far more complicated to render visually. Thus, sound is often used to prove
a woman’s sexual pleasure in the absence of visual representation (Corbett
and Kapsalis 1996: 103). The orgasmic moans the singer elicits at the end
of ‘Come in My Mouth’ can only imply a money shot, not only because the
song was performed by a woman, but because the revue it appeared in
relied on simulated and not actual sex. Both the pleasure the singer expe-
riences and the climax she causes her man are transmitted to spectators
via her cries.
Columbus remains ambivalent about this number, which she never
enjoyed performing:
the song was supposed to be every man’s fantasy. I mean, what’s a man’s
fantasy, gay or straight? But, you know, I was brought up a nice Jewish girl,
and this wasn’t something I did! This was dirty! Now, I couldn’t say that,
because this was the swinging seventies and you were supposed to be
enlightened. But that was a male fantasy, not a woman’s fantasy! Everything
else I did in the show – including the nudity – was more comfortable for me.
(Columbus 2006)
recall feeling pressure to be more sexually liberated than they were com-
fortable with. Actress Joanne Baron remembers,
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Every night, at the beginning of the show, the actors would walk out and
schmooze with the audience before the show began. Clothed. Got into a rela-
tionship with the patrons, put them at ease, because at the end of the show,
now we’re all naked, and we go down into the audience again in a receiving
line, and as the audience leaves, we shake hands standing there, perfectly,
totally naked. [But a while into the run] the women remained on the lip of the
stage, with some male cast members just sitting there naked, protecting
them, because they’d gotten groped too many times through the course of
the run. So they decided to have the ladies stay on the stage. Only men basi-
cally were in that receiving line.
(Pearl 2005)
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mighty struggle over issues of sexuality and gender in ways they had not
before, and it is no wonder that the result was often feelings of liberation
on the one hand and confusion – even fear – on the other. In the end,
adult musicals succeeded not so much in challenging notions about sexu-
ality and gender as they did in offering cheerful, conventional messages to
audiences who might have felt, more than anything else, comforted by the
gesture.
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Contributor details
Elizabeth L. Wollman is Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College and
author of the book The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, From Hair
to Hedwig (University of Michigan, 2006). Her research interests include American
popular music, the musical theatre, gender studies, and the cultural history of
New York City.
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Abstract Keywords
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre focuses heavily on the development of the protago- Jane Eyre
nist’s voice, as the reader can trace the young Jane’s transition from a vulnerable Bronte
gothic heroine to an authoritative autobiographical narrator. Film adaptations of musical
the novel often fail to convey this transition due to the inability of the film-maker opera
to successfully incorporate Jane’s narration into the piece. Two recent musical adaptation
versions of Jane Eyre present interesting solutions to this problem; the ability to narrative
layer voices through song, along with the potential for musical commentary as
opposed to voice-over, allows for innovative approaches to rectifying the problems
regarding Jane’s narration in other media. However, although the stage musical
version by John Caird and Paul Gordon and the chamber opera adaptation by
Michael Berkeley and David Malouf both attempt to preserve Jane’s narrative
authority, the writers are unable to fully capture the novelistic nuances of the
heroine’s development from abused orphan to omniscient storyteller.
The opening chapters of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre establish the contra-
dictory tensions which seem to dominate the entire novel, for as Jane
interacts with the Reed family there is a sense of both aversion and longing
on the part of the heroine: she is repelled by her cousins’ behaviour, but
she simultaneously desires their approval. The depiction of Jane’s contra-
dictory feelings towards the Reeds seems the perfect way to begin a novel
which presents the reader with so many incongruous themes and ideas:
marriage versus independence; passion versus asceticism; religion versus
idolatry. The very form of the novel is itself paradoxical, as the gothic romance
is tempered by the realistic and autobiographical narrative voice of the
heroine. This specific contradiction between romance and autobiography
is perhaps the most enticing clash in the novel, though it is important to
note that these two elements of the story are not set in complete opposi-
tion to one another. Rather, they are both essential components of
Bronte’s text. In an article on doubling in Jane Eyre, Robyn Warhol asserts
that ‘the two genres are not so much in competition as in continuous
oscillation with each other, serving to double each other at crucial moments’
(Warhol 1996: 858). This doubling, particularly in its relationship to the
depiction of the main character, seems inherently novelistic; a reader can
perceive and appreciate the developmental relationship between Jane the
character and Jane the narrator in a way that would not be possible in any
other medium. Nevertheless, the contrasts between Jane Eyre: gothic hero-
ine, and Jane Eyre: autobiographer, provide a particularly interesting lens
through which to examine the novel when one considers the popularity of
this story in other media. Jane Eyre remains one of the most heavily
adapted novels in literary history, and the number of film and stage versions
of Jane’s story is staggering.
Anyone seeking to adapt Jane Eyre for stage or screen faces significant
difficulties, however. It seems almost impossible to capture the subtle
nuances in the relationship between the gothic romance and the heroine’s
autobiography through any medium besides the novel. For obvious rea-
sons, the romance plot seems infinitely more suitable for visual adapta-
tions, and indeed, though most film and stage versions of Jane Eyre try to
integrate some of Jane’s narration through the use of voice-over, most of
her autobiography is forfeited. The excision of Jane’s autobiographical
reflections is understandable: visual media cannot convey the incremental
development of Jane’s narrative authority in the same way that it is pre-
sented in the text. Nevertheless, this excision leaves the heroine incom-
plete. While the viewer can still appreciate Jane’s journey from abused
orphan to happily married heiress, the true scope of her maturation is
imperfect without the constant presence of her voice.
Two recent stage adaptations of the novel have complicated the ques-
tion of whether or not an adaptor can successfully incorporate both incar-
nations of Jane into his particular version of the text. In 2000, an operatic
version of Jane Eyre written by Michael Berkeley was produced in the United
Kingdom, with a libretto by David Malouf. That same year, a stage musical
version of Bronte’s novel, with a book by John Caird and music and lyrics
by Paul Gordon, debuted on Broadway. Like all adaptations of Bronte’s
novel, these two versions of the text must grapple with the duality of Jane’s
story, but the fact that music is an integral element in both of these adap-
tations opens up new possibilities for resolving the tensions between
romance and autobiographical narrative.
Before proceeding with an analysis of these two musicals, it is useful to
consider the centrality of the development of Jane’s narrative voice to Bronte’s
novel, particularly in the context of Gerard Genette’s arguments on the
relationship between the first-person narrator and the representation of
his or her younger self. Typically in a bildungsroman narrated in the first-
person voice ‘we [ …] expect to see the narrative bring its hero to the point
where the narrator awaits him, in order that these two hypostases might
meet and finally merge’ (Genette 1980: 226). Genette asserts that there is
usually some point in the text where the hero has, through experience and
understanding, developed into a person capable of taking on the role of the
storyteller: ‘The narrator’s last sentence is when – is that – the hero finally
reaches his first’ (Genette 1980: 227). Genette adamantly insists that the
two separate versions of the single fictional character do not work together
to tell the story, as it is inconceivable for them to both reach the ‘end’ at the
same time. The autobiographical nature of the novel means that the narra-
tive is presented retrospectively; the narrator’s ‘narrative time’ can commence
only after the hero’s ‘story time’ has concluded.
Throughout Jane Eyre, the ability to tell one’s own story is consistently
linked to empowerment, and Jane learns to appreciate this power early on
in the text; Carla Kaplan cites Jane’s stinging rebuke of Mrs Reed following
their meeting with Mr Brocklehurst as a resolution ‘to narrate her own story,
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to explain and vindicate her life, to exercise her voice’ (Kaplan 1996: 5).
Though the young Jane is extremely vulnerable, she is able to attain
a taste of narrative power at a young age, which is something she carries
with her all through the story and up to its conclusion. Throughout the
novel, the reader can detect that the younger Jane is making a progression
from protagonist to storyteller; the fact that she is constantly being asked
to tell her life story is a significant detail in the text. As a character, Jane
repeats her biography, or at least parts of it, for Mr Lloyd, Helen Burns,
Miss Temple, Mr Rochester and the Rivers siblings. Consequently, Jane’s
skills at recounting the story of her life have already been established
before she finally adopts the formal position of autobiographical narrator.
By the end of chapter 37, the reader realizes that Jane has completed
her development from protagonist to narrator, for her trials have con-
cluded and she has overcome her reservations about her relationship with
Rochester. At the very end of this chapter, when Jane decides not to tell
Rochester that she heard him calling her across the moors, the line between
character and narrator has been blurred:
Just as Jane the narrator decides to skip over her years at Lowood when
recounting her life story to the reader, Jane the character decides to skip
over this gothic experience when speaking with Rochester. Part of the nar-
rator’s power is her ability to be selective in the telling of her story. It there-
fore seems fitting that Jane asserts such power shortly after she has attained
the financial independence which has eluded her for the entire novel.
Jane’s unexpected fiscal empowerment prepares her for the role of story-
teller. The fact that narrative authority emerges from character authority
in the final chapters of the novel makes it clear that, despite the obvious
contrasts between the two main threads of Jane Eyre, both the gothic love
story and the realistic autobiographical narrative are essential to the
piece.
The timelessness of Jane Eyre is at least partially attributable to the clas-
sic appeal of an underdog story, as Jane’s transformation from a vulnerable
orphan into a happily married heiress is a celebration of the heroine’s
strength and endurance. The true power of Jane’s story lies in the protag-
onist’s narrative voice, however. While it is fitting to celebrate the happy
ending that Jane attains for herself in the novel’s final chapters, the most
important element of Jane’s new found authority is that it reinforces the
idea that she is ready to make the transition from heroine to storyteller:
a heroine has little control over what happens to her over the course of the
narrative, particularly in a gothic romance where she is constantly being
acted upon by outside forces. Conversely, a narrator exercises supreme
control over the narrative. While film and stage versions of Jane Eyre can
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While the appeal of the Dickens and Hugo books resides in their larger-than-life
characters and relentless plotting, the allure of Bronte’s novel is a more deli-
cate thing; it’s a matter of sensibility. Jane Eyre draws the reader directly into
the bruised heart of its embattled heroine – psychological immediacy, not
narrative potency, is the key to its appeal, and that’s not easily translated
into dramatic terms.
(Isherwood 2000: 34)
It’s hard to find the tonal variety required for good music theater in Bronte’s
gothic romance about an orphaned young woman who becomes tutor to the
ward of the reclusive Edward Rochester [...] Focused firmly on the principals,
the narrative contains little action, provides little excuse for a chorus, and
leaves little room for humor.
(Ridley 2000: E03)
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staging, few critics felt that it would last on Broadway, and the show closed
after only 209 performances.
Despite the failure of the musical to attain popular success, Caird and
Gordon deserve a great deal of praise for their attempts to preserve the
novel’s integrity while adapting it for the stage. In the preface to the musi-
cal’s libretto, Caird stresses that the creative team worked tirelessly to try
and incorporate both the gothic romance and the autobiography into the
musical: ‘while we accord the relationship between Jane and Rochester the
central place in our adaptation, we begin where Charlotte begins with
Jane’s early childhood’ (Caird and Gordon 2000: i). The play’s opening
scenes stress Jane’s role as narrator, as the older Jane appears onstage and
watches her younger self interact with the Reeds and, later, the residents
of Lowood School. Through song, ‘Jane herself narrates the drama while
the story concerns her life as a little girl’ (Caird and Gordon 2000: iv).
Though the Lowood section of the novel is significantly condensed in
Caird’s adaptation, the creative team imaginatively emphasizes the links
between the young heroine Jane and the older, more mature narrator,
and, in one of the musical’s most striking moments, the two incarnations
of Jane actually sing together at the grave of Helen Burns:
This short but moving song presents a musical variation on Genette’s the-
ories regarding the gradual merging between the heroine and the narrator:
Caird and Gordon use the duet to stress the fact that certain lessons Jane
learned as a child have been preserved into her adulthood. Furthermore,
this is the first time that young Jane sings in the entire play, and it is fitting
that her first song is a duet with her older self. The audience is made
aware of the fact that the young heroine’s journey from abused orphan to
independent woman will be complemented by her developmental journey
into the role of the narrator.
Unfortunately, Jane’s role as the narrator is quickly reduced. As soon
as the young Jane grows up, older Jane steps into the role of heroine, and
the idea of two incarnations of Jane singing together is abruptly discarded.
Furthermore, from this point on in the musical, the narrator’s commen-
tary is sung by various servants at Thornfield and other members of the
ensemble; this technique has the supplemental benefit of granting the
chorus a larger role in the adaptation, as the number of choral songs is
very small. The primary rationale behind this decision, however, relates to
the portrayal of the title character. It would be monotonous and perhaps
impossible for the actress cast as the older Jane to continue playing the
parts of both narrator and heroine, as the roles are too demanding.
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for its part the audience is not looking at Rochester through Jane’s eyes, it is
looking at the man himself without the aid of a partial interpreter. We decided
therefore that we had to reveal Rochester’s deep feelings for Jane, at least
before the intermission falls, or he would risk losing so much sympathy with
the audience that they would never forgive Jane for falling in love with him.
(Caird and Gordon 2000: ii)
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sympathize with him despite his numerous character flaws. Bronte relies
on Jane as narrator to make Rochester sympathetic to the reader: ‘I
believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles,
and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education
instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials
in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and
tangled’ (Bronte 1996: 152). Though Jane is cognizant of Rochester’s
flaws, she consistently reminds the reader of his good points. Even so, it
would be virtually impossible to achieve the same effect in a stage musi-
cal; Jane’s singing about Rochester cannot have an effect as powerful as
Rochester singing for himself. Thus, when Rochester reveals the depths
of his despair in his solo numbers, the audience is able to come away
with a better understanding of who he truly is and why he deserves our
sympathy.
This is not to say that Caird tames Rochester; his songs are brooding
ballads befitting Bronte’s Byronic hero:
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qualities. Tellingly, Jane is not particularly jealous of Blanche, for she rec-
ognizes her rival’s hollowness:
she was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many
brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature:
nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit
delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used
to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion
of her own.
(Bronte 1996: 188)
In these few short lines, Blanche reveals new dimensions to her own per-
sonality, dimensions which remain inaccessible in the book. Jane can only
tell us about her own impressions of Blanche, and while we can glean
hints of Blanche’s inner life from her behaviour, her true emotions and
thoughts remain inaccessible. Caird’s Blanche, though equally vapid and
unlikable, becomes much more sympathetic simply because she is capable
of revealing such thoughts and feelings to the audience. Even if we do not
like her any better than her counterpart in the novel, we most certainly
understand her better, and such understanding leads to sympathy.
Furthermore, ‘In the Light of the Virgin Morning’ eventually evolves into a
duet sung by both Jane and Blanche (though neither one is aware of the
other’s presence). As Blanche reveals her fears about marrying Rochester,
Jane reveals her own fears regarding her feelings for her master. She resolves
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to leave Thornfield, and the two women conclude by singing to the same
melody. Though Jane remains unaware of Blanche’s true feelings, the audi-
ence comes to realize that despite their being complete opposites in most
respects, Jane and Blanche share a veiled connection regarding their fears
and doubts about Rochester.
The unfortunate side effect of Blanche’s song is that Jane’s role as
narrator is weakened further; since the audience is able to make its own
assessment of Blanche without relying on Jane, any narrative commen-
tary on Jane’s part regarding Blanche’s behaviour proves superfluous.
Furthermore, Blanche’s very act of singing solo disproves Jane’s assess-
ment that Blanche is without substance. Through her solo she proves that
she is capable of wrestling with difficult thoughts and feelings, and the
contrast between this number and her earlier songs is profound. Blanche
uses music to win the attention of others, but she can also use music in a
more private and reflective way. Interestingly, this is the very same way
that Jane uses music throughout the show; the majority of her musical
numbers are solos in which she addresses the audience. The fact that
Blanche is allowed to share a similar moment with the audience under-
scores the contrasts between storytelling in a novel and storytelling in a
musical. In the novel, it is impossible for the reader to gain access to
Blanche’s inner life because of the first-person narrator; the musical
grants access when Blanche temporarily asserts herself as narrator during
her solo number.
Despite Caird and Gordon’s efforts to preserve both the romantic and
autobiographical elements of the original novel, their version of the lead
character lacks the narrative authority that Bronte grants her protagonist.
The internal access we are given to characters like Rochester and Blanche
is attained at the sacrifice of Jane’s control over the representation of these
individuals, a key facet of her power as storyteller. Furthermore, the com-
posers’ inability to sustain the musical layering of Jane’s character that
they first present in the graveyard scene prevents the audience from com-
ing away with a true appreciation of the development of Jane’s voice. As in
so many adaptations of Jane Eyre, the central focus is ultimately placed on
Jane’s journey from downtrodden orphan to heiress and wife, as opposed
to the growth from heroine to narrator and the maturation within Jane
which makes such a transition possible.
While Caird and Gordon attempt to preserve the autobiography in their
musical, Berkeley completely omits this element from his opera: Jane is not
introduced as a narrator who has decided to share her life story with an
audience. Instead, Berkeley’s version of the heroine exists in a vague stasis
between character and narrator; since Berkeley omits the Marsh End seg-
ment of the novel from his opera, story time has effectively ceased with
Jane’s departure from Thornfield. Simultaneously, narrative time has not
yet begun as she is unable to give a coherent account of her biography.
Jane will eventually become a narrator when she learns to document her
thoughts and memories in a chronological narrative, but, for now, she is
capable only of reflection. On the other hand, Berkeley manages to pre-
serve a great deal of Jane’s authority over the story by indicating that the
entire opera is taking place within the character’s head. The opera is
formed from Jane’s recollections about her time at Thornfield, which adds
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to dare to compress an epic Victorian novel into a short, taut opera with only
five characters requires a touch of madness. When the book in question is
Jane Eyre, that might prove an asset. Mrs Rochester up in the attic may be
the one who is certified insane, but Mr Rochester and Jane herself are not
averse to morbid imaginings and distinctly odd behaviour.
(Maddocks 2000: 9)
In spite of her sarcastic assessment, Maddocks praised the opera for its
innovative approach to the original text, and most reviews were equally
positive; like Maddocks, many critics were impressed with how effectively
Berkeley was able to consolidate the novel into a small-scale opera.
Furthermore, most reviewers found the psychological elements of the
opera enticing. Though much of the novel is lost in the adaptation process,
the focus on Jane’s inner life allows the work to retain several of the more
important elements of the heroine’s subjectivity.
The creative team behind the opera deliberately decided to emphasize
Jane’s psychology, most likely as a means of compensating for the absence
of her narrative voice. In the preface to the opera’s book, Berkeley’s librettist
David Malouf claims that
it is the voice of the narrator in Jane Eyre that holds the book together and
holds us too; commands our attention and inward consent, engages our
emotions, convinces us, however improbable the events and the turn of
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events it is recounting, that the world of the novel is our own, as close to us
as our own breath.
(Malouf and Berkeley 2000: viii)
The excision of most of the plot allows for the composer and librettist to
focus completely on the interiority of the lead heroine.
The composer’s emphasis on the heroine’s psychology is conveyed not
only through the concise libretto, but, moreover, through Berkeley’s
music. Jane’s singing, particularly during the opening movements, is
marked by violent vocalizing and strange, abrupt shifts in the melody; as
she describes a storm on the moors, the instrumental accompaniment pro-
vided by the orchestra seems to capture the violence of the tempest. The
turbulent music used throughout the piece reinforces the idea that Jane is
not telling a story so much as reliving it in her mind. The heroine tries to
reassure herself that everything will be all right:
Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where bil-
lows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond
its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then
a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the
bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy – a counteracting breeze blew
off land, and continually drove me back.
(Bronte 1996: 156)
However, Berkeley does not rely solely on words to convey his heroine’s
emotional fluctuations. Instead, he cleverly uses different types of music to
characterize Jane’s moods at various moments.
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of the other characters sing in front of Jane, but Bertha remains hidden
from Jane for much of the opera. How then can the viewer make sense of
Bertha’s singing solo in Jane’s memories of Thornfield, if Jane has never
actually heard her sing? The only legitimate explanation is that Bertha’s
solos are manifestations of Jane’s own empathy for her; in other words,
Bertha’s solos are not her actual thoughts and feelings but rather Jane’s
own thoughts and feelings about the woman projected out to the audience.
Like Jane, Bertha is an almost constant presence in the opera; she can be
seen in the background throughout all the Thornfield scenes, as if she is
literally haunting the old house. However, the interior focus of the opera
suggests that Bertha is haunting Jane’s thoughts as well; Jane was unaware
of Bertha’s existence for much of her time at Thornfield, and Bertha’s
constant presence onstage seems to suggest that all of Jane’s memories of the
manor are tainted by her presence. This is not to say that Jane lacks sympa-
thy for Bertha; as mentioned, Bertha’s solos can only be comprehended as
expressions of Jane’s own sense of compassion for the madwoman:
Jane clearly pities Bertha and feels as though her husband has mistreated
her. Furthermore, Bertha’s solo highlights the similarities between her and
Jane, as they are both referred to as ‘Mrs Rochester.’ It is reasonable to
accept Bertha’s words throughout her solo as manifestations of what Jane
believes her to be thinking and feeling, given the fact that Jane expresses
an empathy with Bertha throughout the remainder of the opera. While many
film adaptations of the novel subtly underscore the parallels between Jane
and Bertha, Berkeley explicitly draws attention to the connection between
the two characters. When Bertha finally emerges from her hidden room,
she reveals herself by exiting a secret passageway located behind Jane’s
mirror; when Jane peers into the looking glass and sees Bertha wearing
her wedding veil, the idea of the doppelgänger is made explicit. Berkeley’s
overt depiction of the similarities between Jane and Bertha reinforces the
idea that Bertha’s singing is an expression of Jane’s own fears and appre-
hensions regarding Rochester. Thus, Bertha’s solo, unlike the various solos
in the Caird and Gordon musical, actually reinforces the importance of
Jane’s feelings and perceptions, and the frighteningly discordant music
played by the orchestra when Bertha emerges from the attic underscores
Jane’s trauma following the revelation of her lover’s wife.
Despite the fact that Jane retains her power over the representation of
other characters in the Berkeley opera, it is inappropriate to see her as
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Works cited
Bronte, C. (1996), Jane Eyre (ed. Beth Newman), Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Caird, J. and Gordon, P. (2000), Jane Eyre: The Musical, New York: Music Theatre
International.
Cohen, A. and Rosenhaus, S. L. (2006), Writing Musical Theater, New York:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Genette, G. (1980), Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre 49
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Isherwood, C. (2000), ‘Review of Jane Eyre, by John Caird and Paul Gordon’,
Variety, 18 December, p. 34.
Kaplan, C. (1996), ‘Girl Talk: Jane Eyre and the Romance of Women’s Narration’,
Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 30:1, pp. 5–31.
Maddocks, F. (2000), ‘Eyre we go, Eyre we go: Genteel Cheltenham Sees Dark Passions
Run Riot in Michael Berkeley’s Brooding New Opera’, Observer, 9 July, p. 9.
Malouf, D. and Berkeley, M. (2000), Jane Eyre: A Libretto for an Opera by Michael
Berkeley, London: Vintage.
McMillin, S. (2006), The Musical as Drama, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Miller, S. (2007), Strike Up The Band: A New History of Musical Theatre, Portsmouth:
Heinemann.
Ridley, C. (2000), ‘Musical Version of Jane Eyre Finally Makes it to Broadway’, The
Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 December, p. E03.
Warhol, R. R. (1996), ‘Double Gender, Double Genre in Jane Eyre and Villette’, SEL:
Studies in English Literature, 1500 –1900, 36:4, pp. 857–75.
Suggested citation
Napolitano, M. (2008), ‘Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of
Jane Eyre’, Studies in Musical Theatre 2: 1, pp. 33–50, doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.33/1
Contributor details
Marc Napolitano is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching fellow at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently researching theatrical adaptations of
Dickens’ novels. Napolitano attended Villanova University as an undergraduate
and graduated summa cum laude in 2004. He remained at Villanova an additional
two years to attain his Master’s degree before accepting enrolment in UNC’s Ph.D.
programme.
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Abstract Keywords
Is the universal acclaim given to Fiddler on the Roof well earned? Or has Fiddler Fiddler
lost its power over its forty years of existence, owing to a more cynical, less Aleichem
sympathetic culture? Might this be especially true with respect to what was once musical theatre
perceived as Jewish oppression, and might now be seen as Jewish nostalgia and Jewish
arrogance? Such a lack of sympathy begs the further question: how legitimately Harnick
Jewish an experience has Fiddler offered to audiences, whether during the 1960s Bock
when it premiered or in the new millennium? We thus explore Fiddler on the Roof
as a cultural, literary and theatrical entity, especially in terms of the genuineness
of the Yiddishkeit experience the play has offered and might still offer.
I
I beg the reader’s indulgence as I present a short anecdote, the story of my
Uncle Joe blowing up and leaving my nephew Andrew’s bar mitzvah. To
make a very long story short, when names were announced for ceremonial
birthday cake cutting, Uncle Joe’s name had been left off the list. A man of
almost pure surface emotion, Uncle Joe (who passed on recently) blew up,
took Aunt Myrna and their daughters, and stormed out of the bar mitzvah,
creating a scene.
Owing to any number of other family crises that were playing them-
selves out at this catered affair in addition to Joe’s tirade, my partner
Scott, my aunt Evelyn, my Uncle Bernie and I decided we needed a short
breather from the tumult. We started walking through the halls of the
catering establishment hosting Andrew’s bar mitzvah, and came upon
a room adjacent to our celebration. In this room, we found a Filipino
wedding in full swing. But for the ethnicity of the participants and the absence
of a chupah (traditional Jewish wedding canopy), one might have mistaken
this for a Jewish wedding. To add to this sense of cross-cultural Yiddishkeit,
we watched as members of this Filipino wedding party broke into song:
Having just survived Uncle Joe’s eruption among other family crises, the
four of us found this episode funny in near-Biblical proportion.
1. For a more complete Such is often the reaction to Fiddler on the Roof among Jews, especially
discussion of less-
than-enthusiastic
more secularized Jews, especially in recent years. That which was once a
reactions to the source of ethnic pride has become a source of kitsch humour. The sight of
original production otherwise innocent Filipinos singing Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock’s
of Fiddler on the Roof,
see Suskin 1990,
immortal ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ is the fodder for politically incorrect snickering.
pages 207–209. However, in thinking about this bar mitzvah incident more recently,
and especially in a scholarly sense, it occurs to me that the work of Messrs
Harnick and Bock struck so universal a chord among people the world
over that a little humour at their expense is to be expected. This begs the
question, is the universal acclaim given to Fiddler on the Roof well earned?
Or has Fiddler lost its power over its forty years of existence, owing to a
more cynical, less sympathetic culture? Might this be especially true with
respect to what was once perceived as Jewish oppression, and might now
be seen as Jewish nostalgia and arrogance? Such a lack of sympathy begs
the further question: how legitimately Jewish an experience has Fiddler
offered to audiences, whether during the 1960s when it premiered or in
the new millennium?
We thus explore Fiddler on the Roof as a cultural, literary and theatrical
entity, especially in terms of the genuineness of the Yiddishkeit experience
the play has offered and might still offer. We begin with journalistic reaction
to the original production that sets the tone for the possibility of Fiddler
being problematic. In contrast, reaction among musical theatre scholars
to Fiddler, which is generally positive if not glowing, is then considered. It then
becomes necessary to make reference to theoretical constructs questioning
the legitimacy of Fiddler as a cultural icon among American Jews, especially
Jews of the generations that followed the original production. This begs
comparison and contrast of the Tevye stories of Yiddish literary giant
Sholem Aleichem, upon which Fiddler is based, with the text of the play. In
the end, the question of Fiddler’s legitimacy as an icon in the annals of
musical theatre is vetted.
II
Reaction on the part of the New York theatre critics to the original 1964
production of Fiddler, while generally positive, was less than universally
enthusiastic. Typical of the nay-sayers was critic Walter Kerr of the Herald
Tribune, who wrote:
Steven Suskin provides his own commentary, arguing that the material, par-
ticularly the score, of Fiddler is weak in comparison to the direction/choreog-
raphy and the stellar performance of Zero Mostel.
In reviewing the 2004 Alfred Molina revival of Fiddler on the Roof, New
York Times critic Ben Brantley used the epithet ‘McShtetl’ to describe what he
saw as a cold, calculating, ‘antiseptic’ attempt on the part of director David
Leveaux to invoke an unearned sense of Yiddishkeit (Brantley 2004: E1, E3). 2. The Aleichem
translation that Ruth
Yet even with Brantley railing to the contrary, reviews of Broadway Wisse uses spells
revivals of Fiddler between 1964 and 2004, at least as far as theatre critics the name ‘Tsaytl’.
at The New York Times were concerned, would garner a more positive atti- Librettist Stein spells
it ‘Tzeitel’. Each is
tude toward the war-horse than those of the original. Upon the return of pronounced ‘ts-EYE-tl’.
Zero Mostel as Tevye in a 1976 revival, Clive Barnes wrote, ‘Everyone has I will use ‘Tsaytl’ to
a favorite musical. Mine, apart from [Verdi’s] Aida, is Fiddler on the Roof’ refer to the Aleichem
translation, and
(Barnes 1976: 12). In 1981, Richard Shepard wrote, ‘If you were a rich ‘Tzeitel’ to refer to
man, you couldn’t buy a better show than the joyous re-creation of Fiddler Stein. The same will
on the Roof ’ that featured Tevye #2 in the original 1964 run, Herschel be true for any other
inconsistency in
Bernardi, and the original Golde (Tevye’s wife), Tony-winner Maria spelling, such as
Karnilova (Shepard 1981: III, 3). In 1990, upon viewing the performance ‘Motl’ (Aleichem
of Chayim Topol, Tevye from the 1971 Norman Jewison film and the original translation) versus
‘Motel’ (Stein)
London cast, the Times’ Mel Gussow gushed, for Tevye’s first
daughter’s beloved.
The score liltingly evokes folk and liturgical strains while never losing sight
of the show’s obligations as a work of popular theater. Both the lyrics and
book convey Sholom Aleichem’s homespun philosophies. The musical has a
seamless fluidity, songs flowing into story into dance. Even the settings seem
to dance as Tevye’s cottage swirls in time to the music and as, in the song
‘Sabbath Prayer’, the skies are lined with an aurora borealis of families light-
ing candles.
(Gussow 1990: 13)
Until the 2004 revival, time would seem to have treated Fiddler on the Roof
well at least as reflected by these New York Times reviews. But not only had
these end-of-millennium critics at the Times become aficionados of Fiddler;
musical theatre history scholars would wax eloquently as well. Musical
theatre historian Richard Kislan, in discussing the primacy of the book in
the modern musical, points to the Tzeitel-Motel2 wedding scene.
And yet we must ask: is it the purpose of theatre to tap into what some
might consider shallow sentimentality, or must the theatre be a force of
revolution against such silliness and old fashion? For those who would
defend Fiddler, such sentimentality is far from shallow, and goes directly to
the depth of who we are as human beings. Fiddler, as a prototype for the
entirety of musical theatre, shuns the postmodern, post-human construct,
opting instead for a paradigm in which human emotion is the source of
true human dignity.
Robbins’s retirement from the Broadway stage with Fiddler on the Roof in
1964 was the watershed. The more powerful that directors and director-
choreographers became after the watershed, the more they pursued the
direction of conceptual showmanship and abandoned the playwriting chore-
ography of de Mille and Robbins. Conceptual showman directors sit their
concepts on top of the book like oil on water. [ … ] After the mid-1960s not
only did the book matter less but [ … ] the music and lyrics also became less
important. [ …] The organic link between text and movement – which was
what had made the high-water American musical different from the light
musical theatre of other nations – was sundered for good.
(Grant 2004: 279)
III
Like any artistic endeavour that has become a mass cultural phenomenon,
the larger-than-life entity we have come to know over the past forty years as
Fiddler on the Roof comes complete with its own argument and counter-
argument. Let us deal with the counter-argument first. Simply stated, that
argument contends that the American cultural upheaval of the mid-to-late
twentieth century, commonly referred to as the rise of the ‘counter-culture’, 3. In revealing her
attitude on the
perhaps makes Fiddler, once relevant to a Jewish community striving to conflict in the Middle
throw off the yokes of old-world oppression, no longer as compelling to a East, Solomon says,
modern generation of Jews. Village Voice commentator Alisa Solomon ‘[T]he image of
Jewish powerlessness
describes resentment against Fiddler by the postmodern community plainly represented – even
and succinctly when she invokes the hallowed attitude taken towards the celebrated – in Fiddler
production of the play with respect to following its long-established recipe. was turned on its
head only three years
A so-called ‘bible’ exists, controlling all production values from here to after the musical’s
eternity, for all major productions of the play. Solomon puts it bluntly in an debut, when Israel
‘eleventh commandment’: ‘Don’t fuck with Fiddler’ (Solomon 2004). captured the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip,
Comparable to the sight of a Filipino family performing ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ and other territories’
as part of a wedding celebration, Solomon describes a world far removed (Solomon 2004).
from the original motivation for Fiddler, in conflict with this eleventh com- 4. In this speech, Brooks
mandment. This brave new world has witnessed what Solomon calls said, in part, ‘Behind
Jewish ‘aggression’ in the Middle East,3 matched by prayers for Palestinian me [ …] you see
a phalanx, an
freedom at Passover seders. What was once anathema and sacrilege, a les- avalanche, of Jews
bian wedding performed under the chupah, is now nearly commonplace, who have come with
especially in the large cities with large concentrations of theatre-going their talent, their
money, but most of all
Jews in which professional companies perform Fiddler. In contrast, argues their spirit and their
Solomon, Fiddler would seem to come from an age in which Jews were still love for the theater
fighting World War II and the Nazis. Like Mel Brooks’ ‘phalanx of Jews’ [ …] And that’s what
brings us all together
speech at the 2001 Tony Awards ceremony,4 Solomon implies that Fiddler tonight. We all love
on the Roof was a victory celebration over Hitler’s attempt to invoke a ‘final this thing called
solution’. But even Brooks’ 2001 mega-hit, The Producers, pays homage to, theater’ (Tallmer
2001).
then circumnavigates, Fiddler. Solomon comments on the anti-nostalgic
comparison between the two plays.
Nowadays, ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ is sampled into hip-hop tunes, and a block
away […], The Producers blows a raspberry to Fiddler. As the chorus vine-
steps across the stage and violins saw away, Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock
throws his arms toward the heavens, tilts his head back, and jiggles his belly.
He then shoves away the image of Tevye (and of Zero Mostel, who also origi-
nated the role of Bialystock in Mel Brooks’s 1968 film) with a get-outta-here
wave of his hand. Of course the gag also pays homage. You can’t kick up a
goose-stepping can-can to ‘Springtime for Hitler’ without first bidding a
tuneful farewell to ‘underfed, overworked Anatevka’.
(Solomon 2004)
Nor is the middle-class Jewish theatre audience that Mel Brooks patiently
mocks in The Producers the Jewish community that Terrence McNally,
Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty describe in the 1998 musical adapta-
tion of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime: penniless immigrants, oppressed by capi-
talism and in need of liberation by the likes of Emma Goldman. ‘The
grandchildren of Tevye’, comments Solomon, ‘no longer dream of becoming
rich men (and women) in “a big tall house with rooms by the dozen”. In
vast numbers, they’re there’ (Solomon 2004).
Worse yet, Solomon makes compelling arguments that Fiddler is an
ersatz experience in cultural Judaism. Rather than focus on the real prob-
lems of the Jews of czarist Russia, Fiddler becomes an anthem to the
American dream, and takes on strongly historically progressive overtones.
5. A virtually identical [Fiddler] succeeded, writes the Yiddish literary scholar Seth Wolitz, because it
article, ‘Shtetl Shtick’, was able to ‘fill the needs of Jewish cultural adaptation’. Imposing enormous
by the New Republic’s
Ruth Franklin, would changes on the plot and tone of the Sholem Aleichem stories on which it was
appear in The New based, Fiddler made what Wolitz calls ‘a gigantic substitution’: American
York Times of Sunday, ideals of individual rights, progress, and freedom of association were presented
29 February 2004.
Franklin adds to as also Jewish – except that in Anatevka they were thwarted by oppression.
Solomon’s criticism In the golden land of America [ … ] these Jewish values would at last find full
the idea that expression.
Aleichem was a
bourgeois stockbroker (Solomon 2004)
from Kiev, himself
perhaps guilty of In contrast to the tragedy, dark comedy and pathos of the original
trying to invent a
Jewish milieu that Aleichem stories, Fiddler would seem to offer a mere shadow of the true
had already begun to oppression the residents of any real Anatevka would have faced. Solomon
disappear when he compares the Anatevka of book-writer Stein, lyricist Harnick and com-
wrote his stories.
poser Bock to Brigadoon, Lerner and Loewe’s mythical, Disneyfied Scottish
city, the setting of the musical play of the same name. So Fiddler might be
seen as a Yiddishkeit experience of dubious value, to be avoided at all costs
by anyone with a serious concern with Jewish culture. ‘Many more
American Jews’, says Solomon, ‘know the words to Fiddler’s curtain-raiser,
“Tradition”, than know the prayers and practices that once constituted
that tradition’ (Solomon 2004). In the 1980s, comedian Bill Cosby offered
America an African American grandfather image which America
accepted. In a similar vein, Fiddler ‘offered everybody [ … ] the zeyde
(grandfather) they’d like to think they would have had’ (Jeffrey Shandler
quoted in Solomon 2004). In the end, like the musical itself, Solomon
remains hopeful: ‘I like to think’, says Solomon in conclusion, ‘that the
nostalgia Fiddler stirs up today is more salutary – speaking to Jewish
yearning for the more liberal and expansive ethos that once defined us. [ …]
I, for one, fully expect to [sing along at the upcoming revival]. And to have
a good cry’ (Solomon 2004). One would imagine that Solomon’s tears would
be both tears mourning the loss of a culture, as well as tears celebrating
Jewish survival.5
IV
In considering both Solomon’s counter-argument against and the argu-
ment in favour of Fiddler on the Roof, one must consider the musical play in
terms of both its theatrical and literary roots. Let us first, then, deal with
Fiddler as a piece of theatre. Specifically, let us deal with Fiddler as a piece
of theatre that is of primary importance to American Jews.
In the early part of the twentieth century in America, gentile
Americans came to find themselves in greater day-to-day contact with
Jewish immigrants and their children. This created the need to deal with a
new reality, a reality which no one had had to face in the ‘old countries’ of
Europe – the novelty and import of the American Jew as fully-functioning cit-
izen. Thus there would be an inevitable transition in theatre of the portrayal
of the stock Jewish character from sinister caricature to something less
threatening. In discussing the transition between the portrayal of the Jews
as a ‘sheeny villain’ (Erdman 1997: 37) to something more in keeping
with this newly found place in the world, Harley Erdman creates a con-
struct based in popular song lyric. ‘“For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”’, writes
Erdman, ‘usefully serves [as] a symbolic cultural test that Jewish men –
that is, Jewish male characters – had to pass as they tried to perform as
themselves as Americans in this moment of transition’ (Erdman 1997: 64).
Erdman examines each critical word in the lyric – ‘jolly’, ‘good’, and
‘fellow’ – and determines that these words served as a sort of litmus test
for the Jew in the process of assimilating into American life (Erdman
1997: 64–5). This Jew, particularly the male Jew, had to be affable, of high
moral standing, and ready to take on the responsibilities of citizenship.
And so it is with the Tevye of Fiddler on the Roof. Like Solomon’s zeyde
reference, the Tevye that book-writer Stein creates is at once a friend, a
spiritual advisor, and someone we would trust as a judge in a courtroom.
This ‘jolly good fellow’ Tevye would prove to be a metaphor for the
upwardly-mobile Jewish community of mid-twentieth-century America
that came to know Stein, Harnick and Bock’s Tevye in over 3000 perfor-
mances on Broadway. The importance of this identification to the World
War II generation cannot be overstated.
As mentioned earlier, Fiddler on the Roof is based on the ‘Tevye’ stories
of Yiddish-language author Sholem Aleichem. In a lecture at Syracuse
University in 1979, Ruth Wisse summed up Aleichem’s important place in
the annals of Yiddish folk literature.
One of [Aleichem’s] admirers, the Hebrew writer, Y. Ch. Brenner, said that
Sholem Aleichem was not a folk writer, nor even the folk writer; he had
transcended all literary genres to become ‘the living essence of the folk
itself ’. A generation later, the Soviet Yiddish critic, I. Dobrushin, wrote
with much the same enthusiasm that Sholem Aleichem’s works were actu-
ally ‘life itself; his works transgress the boundaries separating literature
from life’.
(Wisse 1979: 1)
6. For lack of a better communication is severed. Chava’s decision to marry a non-Jew necessitates
translation, one might her conversion to Christianity. At this point, the very act of speaking to his
describe the shlamazzle
as a ‘goofball’. One daughter would imply a measure of acceptance that would undermine
might look to Art Tevye’s essential being.
Carney’s ‘Ed Norton’ (Wisse 1979: 11–13)
character from the
Honeymooners televi-
sion show for an It is in these stories of Tevye and his daughters that we find the organic
appropriate modern, link between Fiddler and the great Aleichem. Stein’s book for Fiddler avoids
goyischer comparison.
much of the racier, more blatantly worldly detail of Aleichem’s original,
7. See footnote 5. such as discussions of matters of sexuality and Tevye’s near-constant
desire to be plied with alcohol by his social superiors. In fact, Solomon is
correct when she argues that Stein’s Tevye is substantially more heroic,
less of, in Aleichem’s words, a shlamazzle6 than Aleichem’s original creation.
Nevertheless, it is this choice on Stein’s part to focus on the loss of Tevye’s
daughters from the Jewish tradition to the modern, secular world that
makes Fiddler as effective as it is.
Wisse would seem to agree that this need for Jewish cultural continuity
was as important to Aleichem himself as it was to either the lackadaisical
Tevye of his original stories or the heroic Tevye of Stein’s libretto. In describ-
ing the end of Aleichem’s life and his posthumous wishes, Wisse writes:
While allowing his children whatever religious convictions they may or may
not [have held], he [bid] them remain Jews. ‘Those of my children who cut
themselves free from their roots and cross over to another faith have thereby
severed themselves from their roots and from their family, and erased them-
selves from my will, and they shall have no share or portion among their
brothers’.
(Wisse 1979: 27)
Thus, there exists a clear comparison between Stein’s Tevye and Aleichem
himself. As Tevye in Fiddler walks offstage with his milk-buggy and all his
worldly possessions, he is bound for America, hopeful for his new life, yet
unwilling to compromise his roots. As Aleichem walks off into eternity,
encumbered only by his literary legacy, he is bound for his reward, hopeful
that he has done well in the world, but unwilling to deal with those of his
progeny who choose to reject their roots.
V
In his text that reproduces and comments upon critics’ reviews of original
Broadway productions (see Walter Kerr’s ‘Father Complaint’ review supra),
Suskin provides a ‘scorecard’ for each play mentioned. In Suskin’s ‘score-
card’, the original 1964 Fiddler received two ‘rave’ reviews and four ‘favor-
able’ ones (Suskin 1990: 210). Let us create a more rigorous scorecard for
the now older, presumably wiser Fiddler. First, let us consider Fiddler as
‘shtetl shtick’.7 Not only does the play perhaps pay more homage to its
musical theatre roots than to its part in the promotion of Yiddishkeit cul-
ture, it plays more to a sense of American progressiveness than to the real
feelings and yearnings of those who would be victims of czarist pogroms.
Next, let us consider Fiddler as the last vestige of the Golden Age of the
Broadway musical. As critics Grant and Kislan argue, Fiddler was perhaps
Works cited
Barnes, C. (1976), ‘Celebrating Return of Fiddler’, The New York Times, 30 December.
Brantley, B. (2004), ‘A Cozy Little McShtetl’, The New York Times, 27 February.
Erdman, H. (1997), Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity,
1860–192, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Franklin, R. (2004), ‘Shtetl Shtick’, The New York Times, 29 February.
Grant, M. N. (2004), The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical, Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
Gussow, M. (1990), ‘Fiddler Returns with a Heritage of its Own’, The New York
Times, 19 November.
Hammerstein II, O. and Kern, J. (n.d.), ‘“Showboat”: a Musical Play in Two Acts’,
London: Chappell & Co. Ltd.
Kislan, R. (1995), The Musical: A Look at the American Musical Theatre, New York:
Applause Books.
Shepard, R. (1981), ‘Stage: “Fiddler on the Roof ”’, The New York Times, 10 July.
Solomon, A. (2004), ‘Fiddling with Fiddler: Can the Broadway Revival of Everyone’s
Favorite Jewish Musical Ignore Today’s Radically Different Cultural Context?’,
Village Voice, 13 January, www.villagevoice.com/issues/0403/solomon.php.
Accessed 16 April 2008.
Suskin, S. (1990), Opening Night on Broadway, New York: Schirmer Books.
Tallmer, J. (2001), ‘Springtime for the Six Million at the Tony Awards’, New York
Theatre Wire, http://www.nytheatre-wire.com/jt01061t.htm. Accessed 16 April
2008.
Wisse, R. (1979), Sholem Aleichem and the Art of Communication, [B.G. Rudolph
Lectures in Judaic Studies ], Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University.
Suggested citation
Mehler, C. E. (2008), ‘Fiddler on the Roof: considerations in a new age’, Studies in
Musical Theatre 2: 1, pp. 51–60, doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.51/1
Contributor details
Charles Eliot Mehler is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Theatre at
Louisiana State University. Mehler’s previous publications include the articles
‘Brokeback Mountain at the Oscars’ (2005), ‘Mamet, Homosexuality, and Chicago
Politics’ (2004), and a review of Jessica Sternfeld’s The Megamusical for Studies in
Musical Theatre (2007). As a playwright, Mehler has written a musical adaptation
of Shaw’s Major Barbara entitled Wealth, and How Not to Avoid It (2004) and the
original musical Poster Children (1992), as well as the non-musical play Flip-Flop
(2004). As a lyricist, Mehler has contributed to Hard Road (2002) and Downtown
(2007). As a translator, Mehler has written verse translations of Molière’s Critique
of the School for Wives and Impromptu at Versailles (both 2006) and Alfred Jarry’s
Ubu roi (2005). In addition, Mehler holds degrees in mathematics and teaches it to
gifted children online.
Abstract Keywords
Sergei Taneyev (1856–1915) was a Muscovite, a piano virtuoso, music theorist, Taneyev
composer, and pedagogue. He was a pupil and later a close friend of Tchaikovsky, Oresteia
and a teacher of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Glier and Gretchaninov, among Aeschylus
a host of other Russian composers. Taneyev was also known for his passionate Clytemnestra
interest in Greek antiquity, in the early music of the Netherlands, and in counter- Cassandra
point. The choice for the subject of his one and only opera Oresteia (1894),1 based
on the eponymous tragedy by Aeschylus, perplexed its critics and audiences.2
While Aeschylus made a number of changes in his The Oresteia that challenged
the established perception of its characters, Taneyev’s changes and additions were
necessary in order to combat his listeners’ lack of familiarity with the tragedy and
its storyline. This article concentrates on Taneyev’s treatment of women’s roles
and explores the ways in which Taneyev’s Clytemnestra and Cassandra are similar
to, and different from their counterparts in the original source. The important
changes and additions made by Taneyev are analysed and set in the context of the
nineteenth-century Russian operatic scene.
Introduction
Taneyev’s Oresteia, based on the eponymous tragedy of Aeschylus 1. The title of Aeschylus’
(525/4–456/5 BC), was composed between 1882 and 1894. It sharply The Oresteia appears in
Russian as Oresteia,
contrasted with the operas that appeared during this twelve-year period: because the definite
Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa (1884), Charodeika [Enchantress] (1887), Pikovaya article does not exist in
Dama [Queen of Spades] (1890), Iolanta (1892); Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina Russian. This article
will therefore refer to
in Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition (1886); Borodin’s Prince Igor (1890); Rimsky- Taneyev’s opera as
Korsakov’s Mlada (1891), Snegurochka, Noch pered Rozhdestvom [Christmas Oresteia, and the
Eve] (1895); and Rachmaninov’s Aleko (1893). Apart from Iolanta, all these original work of
Aeschylus as The
works were inspired by Pushkin’s dramas, Russian fairytales or history. Oresteia.
When viewed in the context of other Russian operatic works composed
2. For a detailed
at the end of the nineteenth century, Taneyev’s Oresteia is thus something discussion of antiquity
of an anomaly – a forgotten, under-performed work that baffled both critics in Russian literature,
and audiences. According to Tchaikovsky, only ‘real, living people, feeling music and art, see
Korabelnikova 1986:
in the same way as I do’ were able to appeal to audiences (Zhdanov 1951: 101–109, and
169).3 Accordingly, Tchaikovsky told Taneyev: ‘I would not have chosen Korabelnikova 1979:
such a subject as yours, with terrible atrocities, with the Eumenides and 83–92.
Fate as characters’ (Zhdanov 1951: 169). 3. All translations from
But while Tchaikovsky indeed chose subjects with ‘real, living’ characters, Russian sources
belong to the present
Aeschylus’ The Oresteia was a natural choice for Taneyev, who had become author, unless stated
interested in ancient Greek history and literature at a young age. His otherwise.
4. Taneyev’s choice also father’s passion for Greek tragedy ignited Taneyev’s own interest in vari-
reflected the stance of
Russian revolutionary-
ous aspects of ancient history that became his lifetime pursuit. When he
democratic criticism found a Russian translation of The Oresteia in 1882 in a bookstore, he thought
of the last decades that the second part, The Libation Bearers, would make a good subject for an
of the nineteenth
century, which
opera, and began composing (Korabelnikova 1985: 175). The myth of The
‘discovered in Oresteia appealed to Taneyev because it gave him an opportunity to graft
Ancient Greece his own beliefs onto Aeschylus’ story.4 The final scene of Oresteia shows
characteristics of
ideal social order’
Taneyev’s attempt to promote forgiveness and equality: Taneyev’s Athena
(Korabelnikova 1979: pardons Orestes because his suffering and repentance earned him freedom
100). One of the from guilt, and the closing chorus concerns ‘love of man for man’ and
most important
characteristics of this
‘pity’. Aeschylus’ Athena pardons Orestes because she is biased in favour
kind of order was the of the male:
right of every citizen
to appeal to and take
In everything I’m for the male with all my heart (except I would not marry
part in civil court.
one); I am the true child of my father Zeus. And so I will not give a greater
status to a woman’s death who killed the man, the guardian of the house.
(Aeschylus 1995: 740)
Taneyev made sure that Hubert would have strong supporters in the con-
servatory, and enlisted Tchaikovsky’s help in convincing Alexandra
Ivanovna to accept the post, to which she finally agreed.
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house in St Petersburg that he ‘astonished us all with pages of extraordinary 5. The translation by
Michael Ewans has
beauty and expressiveness’ (Rimsky-Korsakov 1935: 323). Tchaikovsky, been used throughout
although he did not approve of the subject for Taneyev’s Oresteia, never- this article. It was
theless admired the work so much that in 1893 he convinced the found to be most
appropriate because
Directorate of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg to produce it at the it attempted to make
Mariinsky Theatre (Zhdanov 1951: 188). A music critic and composer, the tragedy more
Herman Larosh, a friend and colleague of both Tchaikovsky and Taneyev, accessible and
suitable for the
wrote that the music of Oresteia was ‘noble, delicate, rich in beautiful modern stage, and it
melodies’, and that it suited very well ‘the character of his chosen story is also one of the most
and reflects all its nuances with wonderful truthfulness and warmth’ recent translations in
existence (see Ewans
(Larosh 1974–78: 345). Thus, many members of the professional com- in Aeschylus
munity were far from believing that Taneyev’s opera lacked in musical 1995: xv).
invention and interest. 6. Agamemnon’s father,
Aeschylus created his trilogy for an audience that knew several ver- Atreus, killed his own
sions of the myth, but he introduced a number of important changes and nephews, and fed
their flesh to their
innovations in his own version. Michael Ewans discusses these changes in father, and his
detail, listing among the most important a move away from Homer’s ‘all- brother, Thyestes.
too-feminine Clytemnestra’, who was ‘chaste and at first unwilling’, and
who was seduced by Aegysthus into helping him kill Agamemnon, to a
‘strong, masculine-inspired Clytemnestra who does the murder herself ’
(Ewans in Aeschylus 1995: xxviii–xxix).5 Greek history and Greek and
Latin were among the obligatory subjects in nineteenth-century Russian
universities, and many translations of philosophical and literary works
from Greek appeared in various academic journals and publications of the
time. However, none were of considerable merit, and many were of poor
quality. I. F. Annensky published the first important translation of Greek
tragedy, Euripides’ The Bacchae in 1894, the year in which Taneyev com-
pleted his Oresteia. The works of Aeschylus were not well known, and only
one Russian translation of The Oresteia existed when Taneyev began his
work on the opera (Aeschylus 1864).
Taneyev’s listeners were much less acquainted with the tragedy, and
some of his changes were necessitated by this lack of familiarity with the
story. For example, while Aeschylus does not refer to Clytemnestra’s intent
to kill Agamemnon until after his return (Aeschylus 1995: 34), Taneyev’s
audience learned of her decision before Agamemnon came back.
Aeschylus’ Aegysthus enters the stage after Agamemnon’s death, but
Taneyev’s Aegysthus appears before Agamemnon’s arrival. Aegysthus’
early entry in the opera allowed Taneyev to develop his role, by giving
Aegysthus a monologue in which he disclosed another part of the history
of the house of Atreus – Thyestes’ feast.6 Taneyev’s Clytemnestra tells the
audience about the sacrificial murder of her daughter Iphigenia, while in
the original tragedy, the event is recounted by the Elders.
This article aims to explore the ways in which the female roles of
Clytemnestra and Cassandra in Taneyev’s Oresteia compare and relate to
their counterparts in Aeschylus’ version, and attempts to show how these
women fit into the general context of the nineteenth-century Russian opera.
Musical analysis here will be contextual and descriptive, to illustrate how the
music supported and enhanced the portrayal of these two characters.
Taneyev’s Oresteia is a three-act opera and the acts are named accord-
ing to the corresponding parts of Aeschylus’ tragedy: Agamemnon, The
7. Foley lists further Libation Bearers, and Choephoroe. In addition to the central female roles of
sources on discussion
of female-male
Clytemnestra and Cassandra that are discussed here, there are also those
conflict in the of Electra and the goddess Athena, and women, of course, form a part of the
Oresteia: Zeitlin chorus.
1978, Gagarin
1976: 87–110, and
Winnington-Ingram
1983: 101–31.
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra in Agamemnon
Helene Foley described Clytemnestra as ‘the most infamous of Greek stage
wives’ (Foley 2001: 201); Edith Hall characterized her as ‘a murderer, an
androgyne, a liar, and orator, and executor of a palace coup’ (Hall 2005:
53–4), while Sally MacEwen thought that ‘of all the women in ancient
Greek literature, Clytemnestra seems to have been the most interesting
(MacEwen 1990: 3). It is fascinating that Clytemnestra is perceived by
many as even more infamous than Medea, who committed the graver sin
of killing her own children.
Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra possesses masculine qualities, and is compared
to a strong animal. When she informs the Elders that Agamemnon is coming
back victorious, they remark that she speaks ‘graciously and wisely, like a
man’ (Aeschylus 1995: 12), and Cassandra calls Clytemnestra a ‘double-
footed lioness’ (Aeschylus 1995: 38). Foley wrote that ‘The Oresteia evolves
dramatically as a male-female conflict and tensions between the genders
are explicit throughout’, and that the tragedy ‘offers the climactic female
challenge to a masculine system of justice, language, and ethics’ (Foley
2001: 203).7 Clytemnestra tore apart the moral fabric of civilization by
delivering revenge on Agamemnon. She thus took on a male role, further
insulting the patriarchal system by replacing Agamemnon as ruler of
Argos (MacEwen 1990: 29).
After Agamemnon’s murder, Clytemnestra comes out to the Elders to
explain that she killed him because ‘He took my own child [that] I brought
up, my much-lamented Iphigenia, and for what he did unjustly to her he
now suffers justice’ (Aeschylus 1995: 46). The Elders ignore her state-
ment, and their reply shows that a wife who kills her husband was per-
ceived as committing a greater crime than a father who butchers his
innocent daughter: ‘Who will lament him? Who will bury him?’
(Aeschylus 1995: 47). Clytemnestra tells the Elders that she will bury
Agamemnon herself, and that Iphigenia will ‘embrace and kiss her father
lovingly’ when he crosses ‘the swiftly flowing stream of tears’ (Aeschylus
1995: 47). Perhaps Aeschylus shows Clytemnestra’s caring side here: she
does not want to destroy the relationship between father and daughter in
the afterlife, despite Agamemnon having robbed Iphigenia of her life in
this world so mercilessly. But Clytemnestra does not regret the murder and
she stands by her decision.
Aeschylus deemed Agamemnon’s choice ‘impious and unholy and
impure’, and his thoughts ‘reckless’. His verdict on Agamemnon’s deed read:
‘shameful are the counsels of that wretched mania which gives men courage
to embark upon a chain of miseries’ (Aeschylus 1995: 220). Here, Aeschylus
clearly tells his audience that Agamemnon’s choice was wrong, and that it
brought a curse and further tragedies on the house of Atreus. While
Aeschylus shows the process of Iphigenia’s sacrifice and her father’s moral
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dilemma, Clytemnestra does not deliberate: she acts. The question of choice
between avenging her daughter and killing her husband does not come into
the equation, and her conviction and drive for revenge are unshakable.
Aeschylus counted on his audience’s previous knowledge of the
tragedy. Agamemnon’s imminent murder would be in the minds of the
spectators, and thus Clytemnestra’s chaste words about her faithfulness
would intensify the feeling of duality and deceit. Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra
is openly audacious. She sends a messenger to Agamemnon to tell him
that when he comes back;
In fact, she openly challenges those around her, but they do not pick up
the gauntlet that she throws to them. It shows the respect and, perhaps,
the fear that she commands over the people.
Taneyev’s Clytemnestra enters the stage as a faithful wife, rejoicing at
the thought of seeing her husband again. The news of the king’s return
has reached Argos, and the slaves are carrying the corpses of sacrificed
animals, flowers, incense, and singing ‘Glory to Zeus’. Clytemnestra enters
with the words ‘Oh powerful, mighty god, Zeus the protector of wedlock,
the judge of the sinful, accept our gifts of gratitude’, which are nothing
more than hypocrisy - she has not been faithful to her husband, and she
will soon kill him (Taneyev 1900: 23–24). The gratitude she expresses to
Zeus is for bringing Agamemnon back alive, so that she can have the plea-
sure of killing him herself. Thus, her words are charged with a hidden
meaning, but outwardly she still appears as a wife who is ready to greet
her husband after a ten-year absence.
Taneyev’s Clytemnestra tells the people about the imminent return of
Agamemnon, and they rejoice at this welcome news. Taneyev removed
even the slightest suggestion of the power struggle between her and the
Elders (or the people, in the case of this opera), which is present in
Aeschylus (1995: 10–12). This Clytemnestra is an authority whose words
are accepted without doubt; she is the queen, the woman who looked after
her people during her husband’s absence and in whom they trust.
8. All musical examples Clytemnestra’s musical characterization here is lavish and sensuous;
in this article are her vocal line is accompanied by the entire violin and woodwind sections,
taken from Taneyev
1900. which help illustrate her loving words to Aegysthus, and show the audi-
ence her caring side. Clytemnestra’s greeting to Agamemnon is strikingly
different: it is sparsely accompanied by a single chord progression in the
strings unison (see Figure 2).
While Clytemnestra’s vocal line is measured and calm, the chords that
accompany her line are unevenly placed, as if reflecting her nervous antic-
ipation of Agamemnon’s execution. Faking her happiness at seeing
Agamemnon, Clytemnestra proceeds to lead him inside the palace, inviting
him to walk on the rich red fabric. Her vocal line becomes recitative-like,
accompanied only by the string’s tremolando. When the king begins his
entrance to the palace, Clytemnestra quietly sings: ‘Let this path, red as
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blood, be the last path you take’ (Taneyev 1900: 95). Even without her
words, the funeral-like, sinister music would be enough to show that
Agamemnon is embarking on his last walk (see Figure 3).
When Clytemnestra announces Agamemnon’s death to the people, she
appears joyous, victorious and satisfied. She recounts exactly how she
killed Agamemnon, and how his blood ‘sprinkled her as if it were heavenly
dew’ (Taneyev 1900: 129–130). The process of Clytemnestra’s talking
and thinking about murder is different in Aeschylus’ tragedy. There she
talks about it in great length and detail, describing every blow she delivered
to her husband’s body, and even derives sexual pleasure from the act of
murder. Taneyev’s Clytemnestra, although overjoyed at exacting revenge
for her murdered daughter, treats Agamemnon’s own murder strictly as a
necessity, and any satisfaction she receives originates from an accom-
plished deed, rather than the process of killing itself. The sexual element is
completely absent not only from this aspect of Clytemnestra’s characteri-
zation, but from the whole opera as well, no doubt because of the out-
wardly conservative morality of nineteenth-century Russia, the standards
of the censor, and Taneyev’s own views of propriety.
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warmth or affection for her husband’s mistress, and she does not waste
time on trying to calm her down and make her feel welcome. Taneyev’s
Clytemnestra almost openly disobeys Agamemnon and demonstrates that
she will not do what she is told.
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a chance’ (Aeschylus 1995: 82). When Orestes decides to kill her, she says
that her Furies will pursue him.
Taneyev’s Clytemnestra plunges into turmoil at the news of Aegysthus’
death, but it is shown only in the orchestra: her stage directions read ‘she
stands still, struck by terror’ (Taneyev 1900: 236). However, her terror
lasts for a very short time and she very quickly regains her composure.
She is determined to fight for her life and when Orestes appears before her
she attempts to stop him by reminding him that she is his mother, that she
gave birth to him, she nursed him, and most of all, that it was not she who
killed Agamemnon, but fate guiding her hand. At first, she merely gives
Orestes reasons why he should spare her life. But gradually, when she sees
that her son is not swayed by her words, she pleads for her life. When
Clytemnestra realizes that all is lost, she curses her son and tells him that
her Erinias, or the spirits of retribution, will haunt him forever.
Clytemnestra’s characterization in these last scenes is the most varied -
she appears as a welcoming host, a falsely grieving mother, a resolute
fighter, a woman desperate for survival, and lastly as an angry female who
has lost everything she loved, and will soon lose her life. Clytemnestra
meets her death with a curse and resentment, having exhausted all possi-
ble ways of avoiding it. The musical language of these last scenes is as varied
as Clytemnestra’s emotional states. The following examples demonstrate
Clytemnestra’s entreaties to her son, where at first she asks him if he
would indeed raise his sword at his mother, then reminds him of their
mother and son bond. The accompaniment’s rocking motion, lullaby-like,
alludes to her words ‘I carried you under my heart’ (see Figure 5). Figure 6
shows her cursing Orestes.
Interestingly, when Clytemnestra tells her son that fate guided her
hand during Agamemnon’s murder, her words appear incongruous with
what the audience has learned about her character previously. These
words are just an excuse, one of her tools in the arsenal with which she tries,
unsuccessfully, to save her own life. Agamemnon and Orestes were
ordained by the gods to sacrifice Iphigenia’s life and kill Clytemnestra, and
even Cassandra, whose scene will be discussed next, was led to her death
by Apollo. Taneyev’s Clytemnestra, therefore, appears to be the freest char-
acter in the opera, of either sex. She was not ordered by a god to kill
Agamemnon: his execution was thought up and executed by her, guided
only by her own free will. Perhaps this is the reason why Taneyev chose to
concentrate on the consequences of her deed and show her suffering after
the murder.
It remains to mention that Clytemnestra was perhaps not such a
shocking character for Russian morals of the late nineteenth century.
Natalia Pushkareva tells a story of Vera Zasulich, one of Russia’s ‘New
Women’, who educated themselves through the works of Western social-
ists and Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s 1862 novel What Is to Be Done, in which
the author ‘pointed the way to “action and freedom” and how they could
be achieved’ (Pushkareva 1997: 204). ‘On January 24, 1878, [ …] Zasulich
shot and fatally wounded Fedor Trepov, the governor of St Petersburg. He
had ordered the use of corporal punishment on a political prisoner’
(Pushkareva 1997: 206). When Zasulich was tried, the jury acquitted her,
despite there being no doubt about her guilt. In fact, the jury found her
Cassandra
Cassandra arrives in Argos at the most inopportune time and in the least
favourable situation. Agamemnon has brought her as his mistress, and
calmly asks Clytemnestra to welcome her, only fuelling his wife’s already
raging hatred. Cassandra has received a gift of prophecy from Apollo, and
thus her character combines divine and human elements. She is shown as
both a seer and a human being; a young woman who is frightened of
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9. Taneyev used leading dying alone in a foreign country. Her role is confined to one scene only, but
motifs (often termed it is an important scene, which not only explains the past tragedies of the
leitmotifs by scholars) house of Atreus, but also foretells the key events of the future.
to identify the
characters, their
emotional states, and Cassandra as a prophet
abstract ideas, such as Cassandra’s divine character is inextricably linked to the tragic element in
fate, retribution and
justice. the opera. Cassandra’s scene is structured to correspond with the same
scene in Aeschylus’ tragedy, but Taneyev shortened it, compressing all the
information into a third of the space devoted to it in the original. In both
versions, Cassandra sees the gruesome past and future events right at the
beginning, and refers to the palace as ‘a prey for the Furies’, whose ‘tune-
less chorus’ she can hear (Taneyev 1900: 100).
All her visions are traumatic: the butchered children, Agamemnon’s
murder and her own death, and the killing of Clytemnestra by her son
Orestes. Aeschylus’ Elders do not believe her prophecies, and the chorus
representing the people in Taneyev’s opera realize that Cassandra can see
the sinister past of the house of Atreus, but they are too terrified to act
upon her predictions for the future. Their inability to take action deepens
the sense of tragedy, particularly for those who know that her prophecies
will come true.
When Taneyev’s Clytemnestra asks Cassandra to step down from the
chariot, she does not reply, but the orchestra responds with a plaintive,
gentle motif in the oboe (see Figure 7). It is associated throughout the
scene with Cassandra, and functions as her leading motif.9
When Clytemnestra leaves, Cassandra immediately becomes agitated.
When she finally speaks, her first words, ‘Oh, terror! This wretched coun-
try!’ (Taneyev 1900: 98–99), begin on A-flat of the second octave above
middle C and sound like a piercing shriek. This corresponds well with
Aeschylus’ description of her ecstatic speech that is moulded ‘to a melody
of dissonant and piercing strain’ (Aeschylus 1995: 35). Cassandra’s vocal
line during her prophetic visions in the opera is abundant in high and
piercing notes, large leaps and tritone (augmented fourth) intervals.
Taneyev made a slight but important change to Cassandra’s words ‘A
house that hates the gods’ (Aeschylus 1995: 33) altering them to ‘A house
that gods hate’ (Taneyev 1900: 100). The words are more blasphemous,
their meaning haunts the house of Atreus to the point where everyone
appears forever doomed – there is apparently nothing that can help lift the
curse.
The defining moment for Cassandra is the vision of Orestes’ arrival, at
which point her character begins to transform, for she knows that her
own death, and that of Agamemnon, will be avenged. When Cassandra
knows that Orestes will expiate the house of its sins, and avenge his
father’s murder, she is ready to accept her fate. She breaks her prophetic
emblem (her sceptre) and bravely faces death. In Aeschylus’ tragedy,
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Cassandra merely throws away her sceptre and the woollen bands around
her neck, the symbols of prophecy, but by making her break the sceptre,
Taneyev imbues her character with decisiveness and defiance. The tonal
stability of this episode (see Figure 8) contrasts with the musically and
emotionally unstable opening of the ensuing Arioso (see Figure 9) where
Cassandra’s part is diametrically opposed to that of Cassandra, the
prophetess.
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Arioso - the only part of the whole scene written in a major key - which
makes references to her past happiness and highlights her plight even
more. Undeniably, it also strengthens the drama and gives more weight to
Cassandra’s laments about dying alone ‘under the foreign skies’, without
being properly mourned by her family (Taneyev 1900: 107). Cassandra
concludes her Arioso by reiterating her opening words about fate’s will. She
sings again that she will die alone, without family and friends around her.
Cassandra’s character is in consonance with a number of female roles
in contemporary Russian opera. Her characterization is close to that of
Liza from Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama [Queen of Spades] of 1890, Tatiana
in Evgeni Onegin [Eugene Onegin] of 1881, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada
of 1891. All these young women find themselves in distressing situations.
While Tatiana does not die, she enters a marriage to save her family from
poverty; Liza, Mlada and Cassandra all die tragically and undeservedly.
Conclusion
Taneyev’s portrayal of Clytemnestra and Cassandra differs from that of
Aeschylus in several aspects. While his Clytemnestra still gets her ‘just
deserts’, she is psychologically tormented after the murder, and realizes
that her actions will have dire consequences. Taneyev’s interpretation of
Clytemnestra’s role added to the established perception of her character. In
the drama, as well as in the opera, Clytemnestra is portrayed as a regal,
powerful woman, obsessed with the idea of revenge, and her irrevocable
conviction and resolution result in tragedy. She is a mother, punishing
Agamemnon for his heartless slaughter of their innocent daughter as she
pleaded for her life in vain. Taneyev’s Clytemnestra provokes mixed emo-
tions. The sin that she commits is too grave to be ignored, but the motiva-
tion behind it is too serious to be discounted. It is difficult not to admire
her resolution and strength in carrying out such a horrific and unprece-
dented act that alienates her from humans and gods alike, and ineluctably
leads to her death.
For today’s audiences, Agamemnon’s murder is perhaps easier to com-
prehend: he died because he sacrificed his young daughter to satisfy the
whimsical demands of a deity. Today, these reasons appear as nothing
more than a cruel, superstitious fancy. Few members of today’s audiences
would relate easily to the idea of a wife staying faithful to her husband for
ten years, especially after he had murdered their child. His return ten
years later with a young mistress would most certainly elicit little empathy
from the majority of listeners.
Throughout the opera, Clytemnestra appears in various emotional
states, despite her attempts to remain outwardly strong. In the bedroom
scene, Taneyev showed the change in Clytemnestra’s mental state: she was
weakened by the terror that Agamemnon’s visits brought to her, and by
having to live with the consequences of her actions. By adding this scene,
Taneyev wanted to focus attention on the consequences of Agamemnon’s
murder, bringing an element of psychological drama to his opera, a defining
element of Russian nineteenth-century opera. The scene also gives the
audience another reason to feel sympathy for Clytemnestra and believe in
her remorse. Taneyev’s Clytemnestra is a woman who begins to suffer the
consequences of her deed, and who knows that what she did will alter her
life forever. She does try to maintain her composure when Orestes appears
with a sword in his hand, but, when she realizes that her end is near, she
attempts to change his mind by talking to him, reminding him about their
blood bond, and even pleading for her life at the end. When everything fails
her, Clytemnestra does not think twice about cursing her son forever,
throwing doubt onto her earlier expressions of motherly love and affection.
Cassandra meets her death very differently from Clytemnestra. After
seeing the past and the future of the house of Atreus, she is at first shocked
and overwhelmed by her vision of her own destiny. However, she accepts it
and meets her death with confidence. Her character evolves from a fright-
ened and helpless prisoner of war, through a tragic prophetess, to a person
who is ready to face death in the assurance that it will be avenged. When
she walks into the palace, her divine and human elements are fused
together, and she becomes a person who tragically sacrifices her life
through understanding and acceptance of her fate. Taneyev’s Cassandra
is not so different from Aeschylus’, but her human side is much more
developed, as is seen in her Arioso.
There is no question about which woman invites more sympathy. But
although these two women are portrayed very differently, they each evoke
their own measure of sympathy from the audience. Clytemnestra finds herself
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Figure B: Maria Slavina as the first Clytemnestra in the first production of Oresteia in 1895.
isolated and remorseful, and, like Cassandra, she is afraid to die. But while
Cassandra dies with confidence, Clytemnestra does so with resentment and
curses. Cassandra’s portrayal is reminiscent of a number of female roles in
contemporary Russian operas that depict young women in tragic or dramatic
situations. Clytemnestra’s rebellious character, while appearing somewhat
unorthodox and shockingly blasphemous, is not all that far from the real-life
personas of such women as Vera Zasulich and her fellow ‘New Women’.
Works cited
Aeschylus (1864), Oresteia (trans. N. Kotelov), St Petersburg: N. Golovin.
Aeschylus (1995), Oresteia (trans. M. Ewans), London: Everyman.
Anon. (1895a), untitled and unattributed in Peterburgskaya Gazeta, No. 281, 18
October [P. I. Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin, II b, B9, No. 1].
Anon. (1895b), untitled and unattributed in Peterburgskaya Gazeta, No. 283, 20
October [P. I. Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin, II b, B9, No. 1].
Foley, H. (2001), Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gagarin, M. (1976), Aeschylean Drama, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hall, E. (2005), ‘Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra versus her Senecan Tradition’, in
Macintosh, F., Michelakis, P., Hall, E. and Taplin, O. (eds), Agamemnon in
Performance 458 BC to AD 2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 53–75.
Korabelnikova, L. (1979), ‘Oresteia S. I. Taneyeva. Antichnyi syuzhet v russkoi hudozh-
estvennoi kulture vtoroi poloviny XIX v’ [‘Taneyev’s Oresteia. Antique Subjects in
Russian Culture of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’] in G. Y. Sternin,
G.Y. (ed.), Tipologiya russkogo realisma vtoroi poliviny XIX veka [Typology of Russian
Realism of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century], Moscow: Nauka, pp. 79–128.
Korabelnikova, L. (1986), Tvorchestvo S. I. Taneyeva: istoriko-stilisticheskoe issle-
dovanie [Taneyev’s Works: Historico-Stylistic Investigation], Moscow: Muzyka,
pp. 99–121.
Korabelnikova, L. (ed.) (1985), S. Taneyev: Dnevniki [Diaries], Moscow: Muzyka.
Larosh, G. A. (1974–1978), Izbrannye stat’i v 5 tomakh [Selected articles in 5 volumes],
Gozenpud, A. (ed.), Leningrad: Muzyka.
MacEwen, S. (ed.), (1990), Views of Clytemnestra, Ancient and Modern, Lewiston,
Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Pushkareva, N. (1997), Women in Russian History: from the Tenth to the Twentieth
Century, Levin, E. (trans. and ed.), New York and London: M. E. Sharpe.
Rimsky-Korsakov, N. (1935), My Musical Life, (trans. J. A. Joffe), New York: Tudor
Publishing Co.
Taneyev, S. (1900), Oresteia [Vocal Score], Leipzig: Belyaev Publishing House,
reprinted (2000) by Elibron Classics.
Winnington-Ingram, R. P. (1983), Studies in Aeschylus, Cambridge: University Press.
Zeitlin, F. (1978), ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the
Oresteia of Aeschylus,’ Arethusa 11, pp. 149–84.
Zhdanov, V. (ed.), (1951), P. I. Tchaikovsky, S. I. Taneyev: Pisma [P. I. Tchaikovsky, S.
I. Taneyev: Letters], Moscow: Goskultprosvetizdat.
Suggested citation
Belina, A. (2008), ‘Representation of Clytemnestra and Cassandra in Taneyev’s
Oresteia’, Studies in Musical Theatre 2: 1, pp. 61–81, doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.61/1
80 Anastasia Belina
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Contributor details
Anastasia Belina is a third-year Ph.D. student at the University of Leeds, where she
is currently working on the dissertation entitled, A Critical Re-Evaluation of Taneyev’s
Oresteia. Anastasia is a writer and translator for Naxos and Toccata Classics record-
ing labels, and a regular presenter of talks and lectures on Russian music. Her
research interests include Russian and European opera, Soviet music, and Wagner.
Abstract Keywords
This article explores issues that pertain to the concept of ‘music-theatre as music’ postdramatic
through a discussion of the performance Clastoclysm. Using Lévi-Strauss’ notion theatre as music
of the affinity between the domains of music and myth as a point of departure, the Clastoclysm
article presents the ways in which the performance makes use of a musically- musique concrète
derived conceptual model, which is applied to mythic text in a way that evades the continuum
boundaries of structuralism. The model is based on the concept of the ‘continuum’, music theatre
derived from musique concrète, and its application will be explored through a
discussion of the process of the composition of the performance score, as well as
the process of performance. In the last section of the article we will return to the
original issue that informed our discussion of the musical model, and will discuss
how the concept of the continuum was used to include in the performance a met-
alingual function as a performed clash between tonal music and musique concrète.
Clastoclysm (2007)1 is a music-theatre performance based on the composition 1. The word is derived
of several mythical fragments. The fragments are chosen on the basis of from Nonnenmann’s
‘iconoclastoclysm’
their connection to the notion of ‘creation’ and their inclusion of the ele- and the conjunction
ments of stone and/or water. The myths are connected through the use of of the two prefixes
motivic relationships that do not support a linear logic of cause and effect. ‘clasm’ (destruction,
suspension, negation)
The composition and visual translation of the mythic texts on stage (through and ‘clysm’
several degrees of abstraction) give rise to a redefinition of the performers’ (construction,
roles, which escapes mimetic imitation. The performance brings together constitution, position)
(Nonnenmann
seventeen performers (actors and musicians) in a conventional studio 2005: 4).
theatre space, where there is a clear sense of a ‘stage’ area (however, this is
blurred at times through the placing and nature of action). The stage set is
minimal and includes a seven-foot tall platform (upstage) made of steel
decking covered with white gauze and a steel ladder mounted on its left
side; a square metal sheet raised from the floor on a wooden square frame
(in front of the platform ladder); a small glass tank filled with water
(downstage right); a narrow wooden trough (along the downstage area);
and a rectangular wooden frame filled with soil (stage left). It was first
commissioned and performed as a work-in-progress at the Song, Stage and
Screen II conference (School of Performance and Cultural Industries,
University of Leeds, United Kingdom, 23 March 2007). In its completed
2. Lehmann quotes Eleni version, Clastoclysm was performed as part of the festival-conference
Varopoulou’s talk Masterworks (School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of
about the
‘musicalization of all Leeds, United Kingdom, 18 May 2007).
theatrical means’ in
Frankfurt in 1998 Music-theatre as music: a trait of postdramatic theatre and
(Lehmann 2006: 91).
Lévi-Strauss
3. These instances are: The term postdramatic theatre has drawn notable attention since the pub-
(1) musicalization of
language; (2) lication of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s book Postdramatic Theatre (2006) in
application of sense of English. Even if ‘this term may not be familiar to many readers’, as
rhythm and music to Christopher Balme wrote in 2004, ‘the phenomenon it embraces most cer-
classical texts; (3)
polyglossia; (4) tainly is’ (Balme 2004: 1–3). The introduction of the term is a result of the
electronic re-evaluation of the historical break, postulated by Peter Szondi in Theory
manipulation of vocal of the Modern Drama (Szondi 1987), between Aristotelian drama and epic
and other sounds; (5)
composing the sonic theatre. Lehmann suggests a new schism between dramatic theatre
space through (which according to him includes Brecht’s innovations) and a ‘theatre
simultaneous without drama, i.e. without the representation of a closed-off fictional cos-
superimposition of
sonic worlds; (6) mos, the mimetic staging of a fable’ as Karen Jurs-Munby explains in her
using props as introduction to the book (Lehmann 2006: 3).
musical instruments. Lehmann discusses the idea of ‘theatre as music’2 as a trait of postdra-
matic theatre. In a theatrical performance, where ‘drama’ is not the predom-
inant factor, music can provide a basis for the shape of the performance
such that ‘an independent auditory semiotics emerges’ (Lehmann 2006: 63).
In his exemplification of the term (Lehmann 2006: 91–3), Lehmann
notices several instances3 in which this term becomes apparent in the
practice of theatre directors. These instances of ‘musicalization’ fall within
what he calls ‘the no longer dramatic language of theatre’ (Lehmann
2006: 93). Taking Lehmann’s term as a point of departure, I will try to
unfold, in a more comprehensive manner, one specific way in which it can
be applied in the creation of a postdramatic music-theatre performance.
Thus, this article will present how the creation of a ‘music-theatre as
music’ performance can be based on a musically derived conceptual model for
‘the musicalization of all theatrical means’ (Lehmann 2006: 91).
The article begins with a discussion of the musical/conceptual model
used in the performance Clastoclysm. In the following sections, it focuses
on the ways the model was applied in the composition of a performance
score, as well as in the process of performance. In the final section, we will
return to issues that initially informed our discussion of the musical model
to show how these issues can be ‘performed’ by way of inclusion.
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references and parallels, has to allow his mind to survey the whole range 4. Balme notices that
the theatre critic
of the story as it unfolds. So, after he has compiled several different Elinor Fuchs
versions of a myth, Lévi-Strauss does not concentrate on the story regards the same
(a diachronic reading). Instead, he suggests that a synchronous reading developments
that Lehmann is
of a myth entails its breakdown into motifs that fall into ‘binary opposi- preoccupied with ‘as
tions’ (or opposite poles). This presentation of opposites leads to a sense a response to the
of resolution of the subject under consideration. In surveying ‘the whole massive critique
of Western models
range of the story’ to make meaningful connections, Lévi-Strauss comes of subjectivity that
close to an idea postulated by Lehmann who states that ‘the spectator of we associate with
postdramatic theatre is not prompted to process the perceived instanta- terms such as
poststructuralism and
neously but to postpone the production of meaning (semiosis) and to store the deconstruction’
sensory impressions with “evenly hovering attention”’ (Lehmann 2006: 87). (Balme 2004: 1–3).
Yet there is a major discrepancy between Lévi-Strauss’ analysis and the In this article, I will
not endeavour to
context of my research, which we will address at the outset of this article.4 explicate a connection
Lévi-Strauss bases his view of the affinity between the two sign systems on between post-
quite a limited definition of music, referring mainly (if not exclusively) to tonal structuralism and
postdramatic
music. In his writings he attacks other forms of music because they do not theatre. While I am
support his structuralist notion of the binary: musique concrète is one of them. using Lévi-Strauss’
ideas as a point of
departure, I will base
By rejecting musical sounds and restricting itself exclusively to noises,
my discussion (and
musique concrète puts itself into a situation that is comparable, from the formal the inevitable shift
point of view, to that of painting of whatever kind: it is an immediate com- from structuralist
theory) on the musical
munion with the given phenomena of nature.
discrepancies that
(Lévi-Strauss 1970: 22) exist in his work.
5. In tonal music the
He objects to musique concrète because, he suggests, it is a musical system first level of source
that is built on a first level, which is antithetical in its degree of abstraction material is to be
found in the domain
to that of tonal music.5 He argues that this special characteristic makes it of a culture-based
less of a musical system, because it creates a problem on the level of the organization (i.e. the
binary between culture and nature that he bases his study on. Because of hierarchical structure
of the scale), whereas
its first-level material, Lévi-Strauss regards musique concrète as being closer to in musique concrète
a type of painting – one which would have to unfold in time. And this idea that first-level
opens up possibilities for a theatrical realization based on a musical model. material includes
sounds as they appear
Taking Lévi-Strauss’ idea of the affinity between the structural systems in nature.
of music and myth as a point of departure, we will focus on musique con-
crète, as a musical style that makes use of the notion of the ‘continuum’.
Thus, we are introducing a notion (which comes in opposition to the
‘binary’) both as a conceptual and a musical basis for the compositional
and performative aspects of a ‘music-theatre as music’ performance. In
doing this, we propose a departure from the structuralist idea of the
‘binary’ to a more open space of meaning: a flooding of mythical images
that are structured musically.
6. The New Grove the assemblage of various natural sounds recorded on tape (or, originally, on
Dictionary of Music disks) to produce a montage of sound. During the preparation of such a com-
states that with
regard to position, the sounds selected and recorded may be modified in any way
Lachenmann’s (born desired – played backward, cut short or extended, subjected to echo-chamber
in Stuttgart on 27 effects, varied in pitch and intensity, and so on. The finished composition
November 1935)
musique concrète thus represents the combination of varied auditory experiences into an artistic
instrumentale, ‘the unity.
composer's intention (Musique Concrète 2008)
was to explore a new
sound world and to
create compelling and What is more, Priscilla McLean notices two strands of generative processes:
logical musical works one in which identifiable sounds from the environment are used and
based predominantly
on sonorities which altered ‘but the actual source or intended imitation is still clearly recogniz-
had remained unused able’; and another in which the resulting sound ‘is removed several
and hence uncontam- degrees from any obvious source into a more abstract level. [ … ] This
inated in the past’
(Mosch 2007). imago-abstract sound, often gestural in nature, evokes dual sets of realities’
(McLean 1977: 205). The notion of musique concrète that we have used in
this particular project (both conceptually and practically) is closer to the
second type. In other words, the originating source of sound becomes per-
ceptible at some point in the compositional process, but the rest of the
sound (through manipulations) becomes detached from the original
sound-image.
At this point, I would like to clarify the above notion by discussing an
example of musique concrète in Clastoclysm. In the opening sequence, the
pre-recorded sound is based on the manipulation of a sound sample of the
recording of a water spring. The sound of the spring does not appear until
the end of the sequence. The rest of the recorded section is composed of a
gradual transformation of the spring sample, from its breakdown into
‘clipping sounds’ to the water sound. Aurally, the continuum is diachronic
but also synchronic in nature, since (while not recognizable as a reference
to the sound source) all the stages of the sound evolution are connected
acoustically.
The three stages of continuous transformation can be presented in the
following diagram:
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7. In ‘Of Sounds and original sound source) does not relate in the form of signification, but only
Images’ Berio states
that ‘Musical theatre
in an (obvious) structural way to another sign, then structure becomes
only seems to take primarily a vehicle of presentation: a vehicle of communication, not of signi-
on a deep and fication. Meaning remains in a state of flux and, maybe because of that,
enduring meaning
once the
the experiencing of the ‘flooding of images’ comes with the experiencing of
dramaturgical the corporeality or materiality of the sign in this process of communication.
conception is The musique concrète in the opening sequence, as will become apparent
generated by
the music’
in the following discussion, takes the form of an introduction which encap-
(Berio 1997: 296). sulates the essence of the performance: a musical structure that approxi-
mates the creation of a continuum between water and stone. Furthermore,
this introductory piece of musique concrète presents a model of composition
that will be used quite extensively in the performance of the score: creating
a continuum of (re)presentation that supports the idea of abstraction/flood-
ing and which climaxes with the presentation of the concrete reference.
However, how can the visual be incorporated (in a music-theatre per-
formance) in such a way that it does not counteract the process of this
‘flooding of images’, as introduced by the musique concrète continuum? By
making this question the focal point of our creative investigation, the idea
of using the music for the intrinsic ‘dramaturgical conception’ of the piece (as
suggested by Luciano Berio 1997: 296)7 and its performance becomes a sig-
nificant conceptual apparatus. In the following two sections, I will endeavour
to show how this was attempted in the performance of Clastoclysm; firstly,
with the composition of the ‘performance score’ (which I will be using as
a substitute for ‘dramaturgy’) and, secondly, with the process of translating
the score into a performance.
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Based on these observations and more extensive research on Greek 8. ‘Primary’ only in the
sense of a starting
mythology, it became obvious that this initial binary could be problema- point, but not in their
tized on the grounds that the relationships between creation and water/ treatment in the
stone present a more diverse universe of connections which can be process of
composition.
regarded in the form of a continuum of relationships. By emphasizing the
motifs in these mythological stories (or by creating a ‘first level of motivic
relationships’ for the composition of the performance score, as will be
shown below), we are looking at the stories in the way that Lévi-Strauss
would be looking at one myth in a synchronous manner in order to create
his binary categories. Yet by relating motifs from different myths, we
depart from structuralist theory: the goal shifts from the creation of bina-
ries to the presentation of relationships that could represent points on a
continuum. These points are presentations of relationships between the
notions of creation and destruction and the way they relate to the ele-
ments of water and stone in musical myths. In this sense, we are not forc-
ing a musical structural connection, but we are extracting musical (motivic)
relationships that already exist in (Greek) mythology itself, just as Lévi-
Strauss suggests.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.M.1 Variation of Reversal of Variation of Reversal P.M.2
P.M.1 P.M.2 reversal of P.M.1 of P.M.1
Figure 2: Representation of the motivic relationships in the two myths as points of the ‘continuum’.
9. This is further The same process could be applied to the rest of the fragments used in
supported by the fact the performance. The presentation of myths (such as the ones presented
that the particular
performer (with two here) in the performance score provides a structurally unified composi-
other performers) was tion, based on the coexistence of the different variations of the primary
involved in an act of motivic relationships. While their presentation in a linear fashion (as in
making music in the
opening section the diagram above) accommodates their belonging to a continuum, their
where she came motivic relationships create a connection between them that would sup-
opposite the port their reading in a synchronous manner. In other words, the resulting
instrumentalists (who
are sitting in the amalgamation will be that of a musical structure which conceptually
audience) and presents an approximation of a continuum.
together they created
a musical soundscape Translating the performance score: the continuum as a basis
that accompanied the
sound of the in the process of visual presentation
pre-recorded musique In the visual realization of the score, we come to address the idea of musique
concrète. The three concrète being akin to a type of temporal painting, or a melding of forms
female performers
(onstage) (mentioned earlier in connection to Lévi-Strauss’ writings). In the context
(re)presented singers of a theatrical performance based on the presence of real performers on
‘singing’ against the stage, this melding can happen on the level of the presentation of the per-
soundscape created by
the instrumentalists formers’ ‘roles’. Firstly, we will look at how a piece of musique concrète can
(offstage). The space be used practically as an impulse that gives rise to a continuum of (re)pre-
of reception of the sentation in the performance. Secondly, we will analyse the presentation of
roles here remains
open as it is not the mythical fragments on a continuum of abstraction/ concretion.
clear whether the
instrumentalists take Musique concrète and continuous ‘melding’ of (re)presentation:
on the role of
‘characters’ or the
the ‘leaking vessel’
performers take on The musique concrète example of the opening sequence (discussed earlier)
the role of musicians. ends with the recorded sound of the water sample. What follows is the
This blurring of the
boundaries between
continuation of that water sound created live on stage by a performer who
musicians and takes water out of a small tank in a leaking vessel. As she walks (in the
actors/performers is trough that is situated along the downstage area) the water leaks out
one that was further
explored in the
of the vessel she carries. Because the sound of the leaking water (presented
performance through a concrete visualization of the sound production) is a continuation
extending the of the pre-recorded sound in the musique concrète segment, the act of creat-
continuum of the
assignment of these
ing sound could be read (initially at least) as another mode of ‘making
roles to encompass music’.9 If the performer who sprinkles water is to be read as a ‘musician’,
the audience. then she escapes another form of referential representation (as with
regards to functioning as a ‘character’). In the process of the performance,
though, her role changes gradually as she continues performing the same
action in a slow, ritualistic manner until the end. This performative mode
(‘ritualistic’, alone) initially disrupts her association with the musicians,
but only until other, thus-far-designated ‘instrumentalists’ come on stage
and also perform music in the same performative mode. Thus they put her
role (and theirs) as a ‘musician’ or ‘actor’ in flux.
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Figure 4: A diagram of the continuum of representation given rise to by the musique concrète of
the opening sequence.
10. ‘A lyric poem may not Arguably, another point on the continuum of (re)presentation would
be called a narrative – be that the performer not only creates ‘noise’ which is used to connect the
that is, it may not
have the impact or compositional structure aurally, but also represents ‘noise’ in the sense
felt quality of a that in her endless journey she gets in the way of the audience’s gaze on
narrative – yet almost the other happenings. When she is perceived as an ‘actor’, however, the
invariably it will
include all kinds continuous repetition of an action of ‘no consequence’ can be further read
of narrative bits and as ‘action as metaphor’. Finally, the ultimate degree of concreteness of the
pieces. These bits can image (on this continuum of referential concreteness) will be its referential
even have a high
degree of narrativity, attachment to the myth by which it has been inspired. The performer rep-
yet still the effect of resents a Danaid who was ‘punished’ by being made to carry water in a
the whole is not that leaking vessel for eternity. Both the stages of receiving the image as a
of a narrative.’
(Abbott 2002: 28). metaphor and as a mythical representation depend on the individual
experiences of each audience member.
Because the pattern of the Danaid was conceived and composed struc-
turally (as an ostinato pattern) in its relation to other happenings, the
audience is free to draw from an open space of semantic correlations with
regard to their coexistence. But far from relinquishing responsibility for
the resulting associations, we need to ensure that the continuum becomes
a means of opening up a free space of associations, different in the mind of
each one of the audience members. This could be a point where Lévi-
Strauss’ ideas can be brought closer to the notion of the postdramatic.
‘[M]usic has its being in me, and I listen to myself through it [… ] the myth
and the musical work are like conductors of an orchestra, whose audience
becomes the silent performers’ (Lévi-Strauss 1970: 17).
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Concrete Abstract
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teiresias Narcissus Pygmalion Rhea Gaia
Figure 6: Continuum (in levels of concretion) in the visual translation of the five mythical fragments.
could be labelled as ‘reaching for the product of creation’. This time the 11. The sound of a baby
arm movement is used on a higher level of abstraction. When Rhea, for crying appears in the
next sequence as part
example, gives birth on stage, she does not do it in naturalistic terms, of a musique concrète
instead there is an abstraction of the birth-giving process into an arm move- piece. This time, the
ment sequence. This same motif of ‘reaching for the product of creation’ is sound sample gives
rise to a melody
reversed afterwards in another sequence when Cronus forces his children picked up by the
back into Gaia’s womb. Gaia is synonymous with Earth, so as Cronus instrumentalists and
pushes down a pile of soil that the performer (Gaia) was building some- played live on stage
as part of the
thing out of, she uses the reversal of Rhea’s arm movement motif from the presentation of
previous sequence. another mythical
In these last two examples the presentation of the mythical frag- fragment.
ments happens on a high degree of abstraction. Yet, in connection to the
simultaneous visual realization of other mythical fragments on stage,
and through their own development on the continuum of representa-
tion, such abstractions are occasionally allowed to acquire a more
concrete signification, at least in a narrow sense of a referential attribute.
After the climax of her arm section, Rhea holds the product of her
efforts in her arms, in the way that a mother would hold her baby. This,
in effect, mirrors the process that I described earlier in the musique con-
crète model, wherein the concrete sound sample is only presented at the
end of the process of composition. Yet, again, as long as this reference is
not connected in a manner of causality (but only in a structural manner)11
to another happening (or other happenings), the specific section acquires
the quality of a happening that is only in the ‘process of becoming’. It never,
in actuality, consummates as part of a concrete conceptual order like
that afforded by a narrative, used as a tool to ‘making sense’ by exclusion.
By creating a clear structure (both on a macro and micro level), the
physicality of the performers comes to the forefront. And it is a physicality
imbued with several levels and changes of intensity (musical dynamics),
rhythm and structure that lends the performance a sense of a musical or
(to quote Lehmann) ‘auditory semiotics’ (Lehmann 2006: 91).
12. The myth of Orpheus from which we were to depart. By presenting this, the clash between the
has inspired
generations of
‘continuum’ and the ‘binary’, which informed the conceptual basis of this
composers (such as performance, becomes performed, essentially as a clash between the ‘concrète’
Monteverdi, Gluck, and the ‘tonal’ (or the iconically concrete).
Offenbach, Rossi, Peri,
Haydn, but also more
In the discussion of the musique concrète example of the opening sequence,
contemporary I referred to a model wherein the concrete reference is presented at the
composers like climax of the compositional process. Based on this model, the presenta-
Krenek, Birtwistle,
Glass etc.) and its
tion of the iconic ‘concreteness’ of tonal music was reserved for the climax
operatic realization of the performance. The music of the climactic sequence is a collage based
through the on musical fragments from operatic realizations of the myth of Orpheus12
preceding centuries
has been
(from various periods of the operatic tonal tradition), and more specifically
phenomenal, to the from scenes wherein Orpheus is in the Underworld. So, while the perfor-
point that some of the mance is based on the idea of presenting a collage of mythical fragments in
operas have acquired
a mythological status
a musical way, this is reversed in the climactic sequence where a collage of
themselves. (tonal) musical fragments accompanies the representation of one mythical
13. An aria from Luigi
fragment.
Rossi’s Orfeo (1647), But if we were to present only one instance of tonal music we would be
a fragment of which is violating not only our conceptual thesis of the continuum, but also the
also to be found in the
collage of the
idea of basing the performance on a musical structure (on an aural level).
climactic sequence. The compositional dilemma can be summed up in the following question:
how can the climax have a metalingual effect without being unique in its
musical (tonal) material? One way of dealing with this issue can be found
in the compositional/conceptual notion of the continuum. The musical
material of the climax need not be unique in its nature, as long as it can be
unique in its use. As a consequence, other pieces of tonal music are used
in the performance, but presented under some form of a ‘suppression’
mechanism.
When, in a previous sequence, Orpheus performs a song to protect the
Argonauts from the Sirens, his song13 is obscured by the non-tonal clus-
ters of the Sirens (both pre-recorded and live) and by the instrumentalists
who also act as Sirens in the simultaneous presentation of the myth of
Odysseus. In this case, the suppression of the tonal aria was absorbed as a
representational technique in the presentation of the mythical fragments
in the following manner. The instrumentalists (musically representing the
Sirens) begin by playing clusters and using extended techniques, but,
slowly ‘infected’ by Orpheus’ song, they gradually start using pitch-sets
from the aria. By the end of this sequence, they all join together in repeat-
ing the introduction from his aria like a broken record ad infinitum; thus
representing their lithification. The choice of using the repetition of a tonal
phrase as a representation of their lithification (again at the climax of this
process of musical transformation) was not accidental. It hints at the met-
alingual point of iconic ‘concretization’ in tonal music that will be more
extensively presented in the climax.
The tonal music excerpt that the instrumentalists repeat here (the
instrumental introduction to Orpheus’ aria) will come back in another
sequence, suppressed this time in a different way. Each of the instrumen-
talists is playing ad libitum in a manner that the sonoric tension created by
the simultaneous lines is never resolved into a cadence. The suppression is
not used as a method of narrative representation of the mythological
fragment, as in the previous case, but as a method of using the audience’s
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14. This action is, of pre-supposition of a well-known, tonal musical device (the cadence). The
course, part of a aural element is complemented by what is happening on stage; the musi-
presentation of
another mythical cal device is shared between the aural and the visual. A group of perform-
fragment that ers keep falling to the floor,14 as if visually transliterating the meaning of
happens the cadence (Latin cadentia, ‘a falling’), as well as the audience’s desire for
simultaneously. The
performers represent a closure. Another performer dances continuously until the lights go off at
Hercules’ enemies the end of this sequence.
whom he kills with The different suppression mechanisms that accompany instances of
stones that have fallen
from the sky as help tonal music could, in fact, produce a feeling of frustration in the audience.
from Zeus. In this way, the climactic sequence would be originally conceived as a
release/liberation from the ‘suppression’ mechanisms inflicted on a type of
music that the audience is comfortable with. This initial feeling of com-
fortableness, though, is jarred in this case by the visual. On stage, there
is one performer (representing Orpheus) and the conductor. The visual
representation of the myth is in fact quite abstract, as we see a male per-
former following, very slowly, his own shadow (projected on the gauze
of the platform) from stage left to stage right where there is a ladder.
Yet the fragments of operatic music in this case impose on the performer
the character of Orpheus. In addition, the use of perpetuating tonal/operatic
clichés exposes and supports the mythic narrative: as the music is brought
to a climax, he turns around and looks at the audience (his shadow
disappears).
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Conclusion
While mimesis in Aristotle’s sense produces the pleasure of recognition and
thus virtually always achieves a result, here the sense data always refer to
answers that are sensed as possible, but not (yet) graspable; what one sees
and hears remains in a state of potentiality, its appropriation postponed.
(Lehmann 2006: 99)
Works cited
Abbott, H. P. (2002), The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Balme, C. (2004), ‘Editorial’, Theatre Research International, 29, pp. 1–3.
Berio, L. (1997), ‘Of Sounds and Images’ (trans. David Osmond-Smith), Cambridge
Opera Journal, 9: 3, pp. 295–299.
Lehmann, H. (2006), Postdramatic Theatre, Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1970), The Raw and the Cooked (trans. John and Doreen Weightman),
London: Cape.
Mâche, F. B. (1992), Music, Myth and Nature or The Dolphins of Arion (trans. Susan
Delaney), Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers.
McLean, P. (1977), ‘Fire and Ice: A Query’, Perspectives of New Music, 16: 1,
pp. 205–211.
Mosch, U. (2007), ‘Lachenmann, Helmut’, in Macy, L. (ed.), Grove Music Online.
http://www.grovemusic.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/shared/views/article.html?from=
search&session_search_id=284118134&hitnum=1§ion=music.15776.
Accessed 12 October 2007.
‘Musique concrète’ (2008), Encyclopædia Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.
com/eb/article-9054441/musique-concrete.html. Accessed 15 April 2008.
Nonnenmann, R. (2005), ‘Music with Images – The Development of Helmut
Lachenmann’s Sound Composition Between Concretion and Transcendence’
(trans. Wieland Hoban), Contemporary Music Review, 24: 1, pp. 1–29.
Szondi, P. (1987). Theory of the modern drama: a critical edition. (trans. Michael Hays).
Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Suggested citation
Zavros, D. (2008), ‘Flooding the concrète: Clastoclysm and the notion of the ‘continuum’
as a conceptual and musical basis for a postdramatic music-theatre performance’,
Studies in Musical Theatre 2: 1, pp. 83–100, doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.83/1
Contributor details
Demetris Zavros is a music-theatre Ph.D. student at the School of Performance and
Cultural Industries of the University of Leeds. He is Associate Director of the theatre
company ‘Altitude North’ and also works as a freelance composer for the theatre.
His music-theatre works include: AiAs Mana, Icarus, and Clastoclysm. His theatre
music includes: Tender Dearly, The Little Prince and other stories, Ajax, On/Off, Frozen
(as composer) and A Stranger in the House (as orchestrator).
Re: Act
Studies in Musical Theatre Volume 2 Number 1 © 2008 Intellect Ltd
Miscellaneous. English language. doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.101/7
Abstract Keywords
The Catalan director Calixto Bieito is a successful opera director, critically Richard Wagner
acclaimed for his often violent and confrontational concepts. He has worked The Flying Dutchman
mainly on German stages in the last decade, where audiences have often been Calixto Bieito
scandalized by the explicit imagery and radical re-interpretations in Bieito’s Stuttgart State Opera
work. This ‘reactive’ review critiques his production of The Flying Dutchman interpretation
for Stuttgart State Opera (2008), applying mainly semiotic and some phenome- semiotics
nological analysis. It also contextualizes Regietheater (director’s theatre) with
audience expectation. The context of the production and the impact of using an
earlier (1841) version of the opera is examined with reference to direction,
scenography and conceptual updating of The Flying Dutchman.
When you go to the opera, you want to feel the energy. It’s about energy, like
at a bullfight.
(Bieito in Beyer 2007: 124, my translation)2
Although the Catalan director Calixto Bieito is talking here about the 1. I would like to thank
energy onstage, his new production of Richard Wagner’s The Flying the press office at
Staatsoper Stuttgart
Dutchman at the Staatsoper Stuttgart created energies similar to a bullfight (Frau Meyer and Frau
amongst its viewers. Though it can be distracting, the feeling of polariza- Peitz) for their
tion certainly raises the emotional temperature in the auditorium, felt generous permission
to reproduce the
even after the first night, when protest and acclaim had been reported as image used in this
noisy and confrontational. At this, the third performance (2 February 2008), article (copyright
sarcastic laughter was projected at images on stage; even more extrovert of Sebastian Hoppe).
My thanks and
audience members chose the quiet introduction to the Dutchman’s first aria appreciation are also
to declare they had had enough and walked out, slamming the door. Come due to Harry Rowohlt
the end, though, surprisingly, no booing was heard. This lack of protest, for his translation of
Bernstein’s poem spe-
despite tangible dislike of the production, may be to do with a different cially for this article.
emotional temperature having developed during the second half of the
2. ‘Wenn Du in die Oper
evening. I am going to argue in this reactive article that, while Bieito often gehst, willst du die
practises a style of detached signifiers (i.e. a semiotic signifier that has very Energien spüren. Es
little connection with what it signifies, or normally signifies), and is always geht um Energien,
wie bei einem
looking to develop his ‘surreal language’ further (see Beyer 2007: 127), he Stierkampf ’.
follows the emotional curve Wagner sets out in The Flying Dutchman. I will
A director wanted to make the seats uncomfortable for the audience when
they were watching a Greek tragedy, as they would have been uncomfortable
in their seats in the original amphitheatre, so I suggested they turn the heat-
ing up as well.
(Bradley 2008)
The authenticity issue is nonetheless alive and well for a sizeable propor-
tion of the audience: some people go to the opera to recognize what they
already know. Opera strives to be accessible on the one hand, but will not
survive by repetitive revivals of archaic scenic inventory on the other.
Thus, productions often do not pursue the objective of clear storytelling,
and directors are not appointed to facilitate or clarify. They instead seek to
interpret a work in their own creative language, and often in relation to
their contemporary surroundings, rather than the world contemporary to
the composer and librettist. According to Bieito, the real scandal is caused
by art refusing to face up to reality (Brandenburg 2008: 19). Given the
small number of works in the operatic core repertoire, the narratives of the
popular, canonical operas are so familiar that some directors see it as
unrewarding or unchallenging to simply pursue another easily accessible
telling of the story. The convoluted and dramatically abstruse nature of
some libretti may also prompt radical updating. Familiarity can thus be a
carte blanche to be playful and bank on the solid, well-known frame of 3. Opera occupies a
special position for
Carmen or The Magic Flute,3 making conceptual and visual choices ever UK audiences, as it is
more extraordinary. The current generation of big name opera directors often sung in a
have no concern over their obligation towards ‘intentions’ or expectations; foreign language, and
words cannot always
they see works as the ‘material’ and their productions as versions or vari- easily be identified
ations on a tale, as the director Peter Konwitschny explains: over the orchestra –
the simplistic vocabu-
lary of gestures and
Mozart won’t be turning in his grave and even if so [… ] Theatre is a very
scenic shortcuts often
short lived affair. We have the scores as a template only. The score is the associated with tradi-
skeleton, the real theatre comes through the live people, they lend their life tional opera can
partly be explained
to the work for a certain time, which revives the skeleton. [… ] It is not our
by this.
job to direct the pieces in the way that the author imagined them, how
4. ‘Mozart dreht sich
should that work anyway? It is our job to ask certain important questions in
deshalb nicht im Grab
order to prompt a discussion. The pieces are the material with which to do herum und selbst
this, they are not just for their own sake. [… ] If you understand Mozart as a wenn. Theater ist eine
sehr kurzlebige
closed system, you are abusing him and he can’t get out; that is also true for
Angelegenheit. Wir
Wagner and most artists. haben die Partituren
(Konwitschny quoted in Beyer 2007: 27–29, my translation)4 nur als Vorlage. Die
Partitur ist das
Skelett, das
If opera audiences don’t recognize what they already know, they at least eigentliche Theater
want to understand what they are seeing. German audiences might some- entsteht mit den
lebenden Menschen,
times be persuaded, for the Bildungsauftrag5 of its generously state-subsi- de leihen ihr Leben
dized theatre, to suspend culinary and aesthetic pleasure for intellectual dem Werk für eine
insight. But a theatre like Bieito’s, full of violent emotion and detached sig- gewisse Zeit aus,
wodurch das Skelett
nifiers seems to satisfy neither demand. To call Bieito’s work semiotically für drei Stunden
dysfunctional would be doing it an injustice, though. It is image-based theatre belebt wird. [… ] Es ist
that sometimes reveals a striking parabolic meaning to a scene. Bieito nicht unsere Aufgabe,
die Stücke so zu insze-
describes how the impulses for ideas originate in his work with the score: nieren, wie es sich die
Autoren vorgestellt
It is our job to interpret the music in accordance with its different levels of haben, wie sollte das
auch gehen? Unsere
interaction with the scene [… ] When I start rehearsing, I know the music off
Aufgabe ist es,
by heart, I can manipulate it, or maybe it is better to say I play with it. [… ] bestimmte wichtige
I work more with the music than I do with the text. Fragen so zu stellen,
daß darüber
(Bieito in Beyer 2007: 126, my translation)6
diskutiert wird. Die
Stücke sind das
Bieito also dismisses criticism that accuses him of pursuing a sensationalist, Material dazu, sie sind
kein Selbstzweck. [… ]
forcibly updated agenda, seeing himself rather as a destroyer of operatic Wenn man Mozart als
clichés. When Quentin Tarantino and his particular style of violent noncha- geschlossenes System
lance first came to popular consciousness in the mid-1990s, some critics begreift, tut man ihm
Gewalt an, da kann er
compared his texts to those of Jacobean playwrights Webster or Marston. nicht mehr aus sich
Bieito, sometimes compared to Tarantino, sees his heritage in his culture, heraus, das gilt genau
however, providing an autobiographical aspect to some of his concepts:7 so für Wagner wie für
jeden anderen
Künstler auch’.
My black humour comes from Cervantes, Valle Inclan and Cabedo. That’s
my culture – my surrealistic view of life comes from my background and cul- 5. The terms
Bildungsauftrag (‘the
ture. People have said that my work is like Tarantino but I’m far closer to mission to educate’)
Goya. His paintings are violent but he was the precursor of the and Kulturauftrag (‘the
Expressionists. I was shocked when I was young and saw Goya’s pictures at mission to provide
culture’) are very pre-
the Prado. sent in German
(Bieito, quoted in Fisher 2003) society, and are
Detached signifiers, dead babies and demon dwarves: Bieito’s Dutchman 103
Kara McKechnie
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Xavier Zuber, Bieito’s long-term collaborating dramaturg, outlines concep- central to the expecta-
tion of a theatre or
tual choices in the informative and visually striking programme booklet opera company’s
for the Dutchman, which apes the appearance of a MasterCard on the public role.
cover, and is laid out like a credit card statement on the inside. The pro- 6. ‘Die Musik
duction team decided on using the Urfassung, the 1841 version of the entsprechend zu
opera: it is performed without an interval, is set in Scotland rather than interpretieren und auf
ihre verschiedenen
Norway and can be aligned with Wagner and his situation at the time, as Niveaus mit der Szene
elaborated below. Conductor Enrique Mazzola also discusses ‘the straight- zu reagieren ist unser
forward kinds of feelings that are expressed here’, in contrast to a spirit of Job. [… ] Zu Beginn
der Proben habe ich
transcendence which didn’t enter the score until the 1861 version. The die Musik auswendig
transfigurative qualities of Wagner’s later version(s), he remarks, would im Kopf, ich kann sie
not match the conceptual approach of the Stuttgart production, which is manipulieren, doch
das ist vielleicht das
free from allusions and hints (Mazzola 2008: 53)8. ‘The opera is thus falsche Wort, ich
Wagner’s attempt to artistically contribute to the societal situation of the kann mit ihr spielen.
times, clad in the gown of the Dutchman’s legend’ (Zuber 2008: 9). [… ] Ich arbeite
darüber mehr als mit
dem Text’.
The performance
In the overture, with the ‘violent tremolo, the hollow fifths and octaves’ 7. In some interviews
preceding the
that constitute the ‘ghostly Dutchman motif ’ (Kaiser 1992: 24), a Stuttgart Dutchman,
woman’s silhouette is visible behind semi-transparent glass panes. She is Bieito described an
surrounded by threatening shadows, enormous when far away, and only epiphany at Zurich
airport, where he
diminishing to human size when they are close to the panes. One male suddenly felt like a
figure with a briefcase approaches the woman and alternates affectionate rootless, eternally
attention with brutal acts, striking her and stubbing cigarette ends out travelling Dutchman
figure in a faceless
on her skin. The proximity of this act makes it even more disturbing, airport lounge. This,
although it is anonymized by the semi-opaque glass. One assumes that the however, is not
figures are Senta and her father, Donald in this version. After the male fig- mentioned in the
programme booklet
ure has left, the female paces the length of the curtain, looking outwards, for the production.
and finally writing ‘Rette mich!’ (‘Save me!’) all over the panes with a lip-
8. It is debatable
stick. The scene is set: Senta’s desperation, her innere Notwendigkeit (inner whether the term
necessity) to escape the abuse she has just encountered (and the confor- ‘Urfassung’ can be
mity she is expected to show in later scenes) has clearly been formulated. used, as the 1841
version was never
It is juxtaposed with the Dutchman’s inner necessity to escape, shown in performed as it is
the first scene. The Dutchman is not a ghost in this interpretation. Bieito presented in the
and Zuber map his search for redemption onto Wagner’s description of an Stuttgart production:
‘the material was not
inner necessity, and interpret it as the character’s need to escape the ‘inner produced by Wagner
apocalyptic prison’, the ‘steely hard structure’ of capitalism (Weber, in this form’ (Mazzola
quoted in Zuber 2008: 8). ‘The Dutchman as modern businessman of 2008: 53).
today [in a] life between duty and loneliness. Thus the first scene was
born, a boat full of men, stranded victims of modern working life.
Survivors of our achievement’ (Zuber 2008: 8).
It is Max Weber’s ‘steely hard structure’ that has given the main impulse
to Bieito’s scenography – a cold metal frame which encases the depth of the
stage and extends the proscenium arch on the inside. The production’s dra-
maturgy draws a parallel between the outcast that is the Dutchman and a
destitute Richard Wagner during his time in Paris. Here, he likened himself to
a shipwrecked person, not as one who comes up against cliffs, but one who
slowly sinks in bog and quicksand – the artist’s dependence on capital, spon-
sorship and funding. Hence the two main elements of the scenography: a
steely hard structure, set on wet, boggy sand, into which one helplessly sinks.
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9. ‘My mother said it Donald’s ship does not deliver romantic seafarer’s fantasies: it is an
was simple to keep
a man, you must be
overcrowded rubber dinghy onto which the male chorus is piled. They are
a maid in the living wearing black suits, the disjuncture between formal wear and inadequate
room, a cook in the boat making sure we understand that these men are stranded: shares,
kitchen and a whore
in the bedroom. I said
bonds and other signs of financial transaction littering the scene as they
I’d hire the other two enter. There is a PowerPoint projection at the back that formulates the
and take care of the vocabulary they have been conditioned to respond to: life coaching, nat-
bedroom bit’ (‘Jerry
Hall’ 2008).
ural selection, motivational talk. Gradually, the words flashing up on the
screen speed up, giving the impression of being out of control, hollow rep-
etitions of corporate jargon. Here is a clear case for getting out. The
German word Aussteiger is used a lot in the materials provided with the
production – it can be translated as ‘someone who leaves the rat race’, and
it certainly looks as though the Dutchman has taken that decision and
joined the futile crew on the dinghy. Confusingly, no distinction seems to
be made between Donald’s and the Dutchman’s ship, there is one
(generic?) rubber dinghy. Another enigma, albeit of the entertaining kind,
is provided by the Boatswain. With no direct narrative function in the plot
of the opera, a provider of maritime atmosphere, Bieito has sought new
playful outlets for this figure. Dressed in white, he is accompanied by two
showgirls with headdresses and white feathery costumes and a lit-up
Wendy house that can walk. A male dwarf bursts out of it, dressed in a
bridal gown and projecting demonic laughter at the bewildered audience.
After the Boatswain’s aria ‘Durch Gewitter und Sturm’, he and the dwarf-
bride-demon retreat to the walking Wendy house for sex. The signs produced
by this white-dressed conglomerate are at best speculative (a perversion of
the pseudo-romantic ideals of a screwed-up society? A perversion of a
domesticity that is just based on transaction – homeliness for money and
sex? But what about the showgirls?!).
Apart from the dinghy, the most quoted image in reviews and reactions
consists of the three rows of fridges that are brought in for Act 2. They are
multi-purpose fridges, replacing the spinning wheels in the women’s cho-
rus of the same name, and functioning as objects to sit on, lean over and
to engage with choreographically. Disturbingly, when opened, they reveal
copious amounts of shiny shrink-wrapped meat, and a human foetus
each. The associations evoked by the fridges are supported by the women’s
appearance and behaviour, motivated entirely by the need to please the
tastes of their husbands. This prompts thoughts about Jerry Hall’s famous
quoting of her mother’s recipe to keeping a man: a maid in the living
room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.9 Senta, although
equipped with the same attributes, a blonde wig and her personal fridge,
never for a moment belongs to this perversion of a sisterhood. Given her
position, she is not yet able to be the Aussteiger the Dutchman has already
become. She, however, has a powerful voice. In her ballad, at the very core
of the opera both dramaturgically and musically, striking imagery is found
for Senta’s in-between situation. She is encouraged to sing the ballad
(against the wishes of Mary, a fierce ‘butch’ supervisor figure in a mono-
chrome suit), but in order to be contained, is ‘chained’ with marigolds
between two fridges, so her arm movement is restricted. Bieito follows the
musical structure of the ballad, which suggests disinterest by the other
women at first, but draws them into joining the chorus and developing
empathy for the Dutchman’s plight. When this happens, Senta’s arms are 10. There is a slight irony
to the ‘emancipation’
freed by one of the women and the first step towards her emancipation has of Senta over the
been made, it seems. The ballad has interrupted the women’s routine of other women as
preening dances and the existence based on wanting to please.10 Wagner envisaged her
as a prototype of the
It is the mass scene at the harbour in Act 3 that culminates in one of ‘new ideal woman’,
the climaxes of this production: the ghost choir. The disintegration that has who gives herself up
started in the fridge scene takes hold even more. It is best perceived through entirely in support of
the man she loves.
the bodies, hair and make-up of the chorus, not so much on the disintegra- There are possible
tion of the set, which is by now far too chaotically messy and overloaded to connections with the
offer any parabolic or metaphorical clarity. This prompts a question about stormy relationship
he had with his first
whether directors like Bieito need a strong scenographer as a collaborator, wife, Minna Planer, at
resulting in more of a visual counterpoint in which to embed the concept. the time of working
The chorus, in calling the sailors from the ghost ship, turn towards the on Dutchman, as is
pointed out in the
audience, which is confrontational, but we don’t yet understand what the programme booklet.
point of this is. When the ghostly voices from the (here invisible)
Dutchman’s ship respond, the doors of the auditorium are flung open,
piercing light floods in, and the amplified choral voices enter the audito-
rium and have their effect on the stage. While this is a hair-raising
moment, which provokes genuine tension, some of its danger is spoilt by
the stage exploding into action during this sequence. Sixty people simulate
total meltdown in strobe lighting on a stage covered in neon-coloured
wrapping paper and discarded data sheets. They rip off their clothing and
writhe in wet sand and fog. My criticism of this does not relate to the
provocative element this sequence doubtlessly carries, but to the fact that
an initially thrilling and unsettling idea has been weakened: the disembod-
ied voices attacking the audience’s comfort zone, which possibly equate us
with the ghost choir, desperately need a counterpoint of stillness on stage.
The German word Aktionismus – action for the sake of it – unfortunately
describes the mayhem on stage.
In conclusion, the semiotics of this production do produce exciting
results for some key features: the MasterCard programmes introduce the
production before the curtain rises; the steely frame and the fridges pro-
vide dramaturgically motivated scenography; the ghost choir raises pulse
rates; the biographical allusions to Wagner’s outsider status prompt fur-
ther thinking. Bieito is at his most successful where an image or a scene at
first triggers a strong phenomenological reaction, which then contributes
to a semiotic response. As for the detached signifiers, some have emotional
triggers, some are pure spectacle, which prompts the question about the
interaction between dramatic narrative, in which the opera is constructed,
and the function of spectacle within it.
The emotional temperature in Bieito’s productions, described as ‘either
boiling hot or ice cold, but never lukewarm’ (Brandenburg 2008: 21)
responds to the needs of operatic expression, so dependent on heightened
emotions. It is this quality that gives an edge to Bieito’s work over other
‘scandalous’ opera productions, despite its frequent dramatic unevenness.
Is the unevenness of the production conceptual or an accepted by-product?
This question is provoked by the production’s more enigmatic images,
which do not seem to serve an immediate emotional or dramaturgical
function. They might, of course, have the function of simply livening up
the more ‘connected’ aspects of the evening. I would firmly put the
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11. ‘Horch – ein Schrank Boatswain, the showgirls and the howling, cross-dressing dwarf into this
geht durch die Nacht /
Voll mit nassen
category. In accepting the ‘unreadability’ of this series of images, one is
Hemden… / Den reminded of a poem by the German poet F. W. Bernstein (Fritz Weigle) that
habe ich mir promotes confusing one’s audience for the sake of it:
ausgedacht, / Um
Euch zu befremden’.
Hark – a closet walks by night
Full of shirts so wet …
Did I invent this, thought you might
Be displeased? You bet.
(Bernstein 1994: 14, translated by Harry Rowohlt)11
Works cited
Bernstein, F. W. (1994), Reimweh: Gedichte und Prosa, Stuttgart: Reclam.
Beyer, B. (ed.), (2007), Warum Oper? Gespräche mit Opernregisseuren (2nd ed.), Berlin:
Alexander Verlag.
Bradley, J. (2008), personal communication, March.
Brandenburg, D. (2008), ‘Der menschenfreundliche Extremist’, Die Deutsche Bühne,
March, p. 18.
Fisher, P. (2003), ‘I’m Not a Monster’, The British Theatre Guide, http://www.
britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/interviews/CalixtoBieito.htm. Accessed
16 April 2008.
‘Jerry Hall’ (2008), Brainy Quote, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/
j/jerryhall182855.html, Accessed 21 March 2008.
Kaiser, J. (1992), Leben mit Wagner, München: Piper Verlag.
Mazzola, E. (2008), ‘Zur Urfassung von 1841 (Nach einem Gespräch mit Xavier
Zuber)’, Der Fliegende Holländer (programme), Staatsoper Stuttgart.
Zuber, X. (2008), ‘Jenseits materieller Werte und Konventionen. Zur Dramaturgie
und Inszenierung’, Der Fliegende Holländer (programme), Staatsoper Stuttgart.
Suggested citation
McKechnie, K. (2008), ‘Detached signifiers, dead babies and demon
dwarves: Bieito’s Dutchman’, Studies in Musical Theatre 2: 1, pp. 101–108,
doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.101/7
Contributor details
Kara McKechnie is a Lecturer in Dramaturgy and Literary Management at the
University of Leeds. She has a professional background in opera and gained her
MA from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She has worked extensively on
Alan Bennett (Ph.D. 2004), specifically in the field of television drama (Alan
Bennett, The Television Series, Manchester University Press 2007). She teaches and
publishes on adaptation, intermediality and new writing, and has recently been
working with Opera North, both within the University of Leeds partnership with
the company, and as a freelance dramaturg.
Reviews
Studies in Musical Theatre Volume 2 Number 1 © 2008 Intellect Ltd
Reviews. English language. doi: 10.1386/smt.2.1.109/4
This examination of the ways in which selected opera librettists and com-
posers have used, or – as Michael Ewans states – ‘appropriated’, elements
of story, style and form from traditional Greek sources makes for captivat-
ing reading. The author traces each of the eight selected operas back to its
source texts, in particular, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the Greek tragedies
of Sophocles and Euripides.
The following chart lists these operas, their librettists and composers,
and the ancient Greek source materials to which they are traced. The first
three operas were originally performed prior to the twentieth century, and
the last five during the twentieth century.
In some cases, the opera chosen for analysis is close to the style and
spirit of the source material (e.g. Iphigénie en Tauride); in others the opera is
a compilation of several stories about the same mythical person or series of
events (e.g. Oedipe); or is a free or even fragmentary adaptation (e.g. King
Priam); or is a totally new re-interpretation of the characters and themes
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The only limiting feature of the book for researchers is the lack of pub-
lisher names for the monographs cited in the secondary literature section
in the bibliography. Despite this drawback, the text of the book itself is
compelling reading and inspires the reader to want to consult the original
source material as well as listen to or watch the operas under discussion.
The clarity of the writing style, the in-depth insight into the operas, com-
plete with musical examples, and the erudite analysis of the relationship
between opera and source material all make this a valuable resource for
music researchers, students of opera, and also for those general readers
interested in the development of opera as it relates to classical Greek epics
and theatrical forms.
This scholarly work traces the creation and development of Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (originally entitled Away We Go!) from its incep-
tion in 1942 through rehearsals and tryouts for the New York opening
and then through its first ten years of performance up to the 1955 film
version of the musical. Oklahoma!, based on the 1930 Lynn Riggs play,
Green Grow The Lilacs, was considered a characteristically American musi-
cal with ‘homespun’ values. The show was hailed as innovative because of
its ‘realism’ and ‘naturalness’ and because it integrated music, dance and
drama – characteristics that set it apart from other popular musicals of its
time (p. 26). Oklahoma! defied classification, even by the production team
itself, and was alternately described as: an operetta, a folk opera, and a musi-
cal play. This show was one of a small number of musical productions of
its day, including Porgy and Bess and Show Boat, which were said to explore
the essence of what it meant to be ‘American’. Because the images in
Oklahoma! engendered positive feelings of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ in its audi-
ences, the show was used to raise the morale of citizens and soldiers alike
during the war years (p. xiv). In retrospect this show was deemed to have
achieved a ‘golden mean, successfully reconciling all the different
demands facing the Broadway stage in the early 1940s’ (p. 27).
Tim Carter’s opening chapter considers the context in which Oklahoma!
developed. Insight into Riggs’ play, the musical’s source material, is provided
with a discussion of how characters and their emphasis in the storyline
changed when they were transported from the original play into the develop-
ing musical (e.g. Jeeter became Jud, Ado Annie’s role was extended). The the-
atre scene in New York is also discussed, in particular the development of the
influential Theatre Guild that initially produced Oklahoma! The careers of Riggs
and Rodgers, first when he was with Hart and then with Hammerstein, are out-
lined, and the collaborative partnership between Hammerstein and Rodgers
that ‘dominated Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s’ is analysed (p. 21).
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In short, this scholarly work deserves recognition for the valuable contri-
bution it makes to research about ‘the musical’ in general, and Oklahoma! in
particular. Carter’s well-documented treatment should delight both musical
aficionados and researchers alike.
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Jewish assimilation, revealed that the ‘enormous anxieties’ that had beset
his working life were located in his Jewish identity. His career had been
‘a lifetime of work to assimilate’ himself into American society, lest he be
found out to have no talent, to be ‘a little Jewish kike’ (p. 447–448).
Readers of this book should keep a Yiddish glossary to hand.
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British musical films. Mundy notes that audiences often see these films as
poor relations of the Hollywood musical films. His work here goes some way
to redress that criticism. His stated intention is ‘to redress what has been a
critical dereliction of an important area of British cinema’ (p. 10).
One of the tenets of this book is that British musicals of the period both
drew upon and articulated important and distinctive aspects of British
national identity, including contentious issues of social class, regionalism,
attitudes to youth, and gender. To examine these issues, each chapter pro-
vides a brief history of the decade under scrutiny. Then, from chapters two
to five, the content follows a similar format: production, distribution and
exhibition context, legislation, censorship, and brief biographical artist
details where appropriate. These combine with selected and detailed case
studies of plot analysis that are placed in an historic context. His detailed
critical analyses, which tease out the dynamics and implications of the
social and the cultural influences, are thorough. This organizing principle
of the first five chapters works well.
But where this book disappoints is from chapter six, ‘The 1970s and
beyond’, where Mundy amends his format of ‘one decade, one chapter’ to
cover thirty to thirty-five years in as many pages. It is a question of balance.
Whilst I am certainly not advocating that each chapter should be of equal
size, the cramming of the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s and a mention of the 2000s
into one chapter raises several questions and problems of faulty proportion
within the book. For this I can see no justification: elsewhere Denis Gifford
charts 38 British musical films from 1970 to 1979, whilst Linda Wood has
30 ‘pop music’ films listed for 1971–1980; these alone require a greater
‘fleshing out’. These thirty years deserve a full exposition. The changes
which took place from the 1970s to 2000 and beyond match the changes
from the 1930s to the 1960s in their different complexities. Perhaps Mundy
is less assured in his consideration from the 1970s onwards, as there is still
a deal of research to be undertaken if the last chapter of this book and his
bibliography are to be considered representative.
A further disappointment of the book as a whole is the lack of technical
detail: a fuller ‘soundscape’ would give a greater dynamic to these films
and would introduce the reader to a vocabulary of useful expressions
(heightened sound effects, long-lead notes, ascending flutes, dissonant
suspense, for example). Mundy’s methodology tends to be too dependent
on plot paraphrasing which is an unhelpful technique for analysing film
musicals (the fact that Dorothy is concussed during a ‘twister’ hardly
forms an analysis of musical film, for example). Work in film and in musical
film requires some kind of technical analysis: how music works at a technical
level; how musical discourse relates to verbal and visual discourse and
questions of musicality all require scrutiny.
This book is to be recommended as a good, informative, broad-based
survey, useful for students of film, media, music, drama and cultural studies
who are looking for an entry into this broad genre and to use this text as a
general resource. But the reader needs to be alert to errors. One of the
more entertaining examples is that Leslie Howard was the star of Brief
Encounter (p. 110).
This is not a book that opens up new research questions or offers new
ideas. The density of this study is at once a strength and a weakness, and
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Works cited
Donnelly, K. J. (2001), Pop Music in British Cinema: A Chronicle, London: BFI
Publishing.
Gifford, D. (1986), British Film Catalogue, London: David and Charles Publishers
PLC.
Swynnoe, J. G. (2002), The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936–1958, Rochester,
NY: The Boydell Press.
Wood, L. (1983), British Films 1971–1981, London: British Film Institute Library
Services.
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shared idea of ‘pantoland’ created through the moments when the actors
step out of character or acknowledge their performance in addressing the
audience: ‘pantoland is not the place where the story of pantomime takes
place; that might be Nottingham or Peking or the Village of Much
Giggling. Pantoland is the theatrical world where the performers exist ‘as
themselves’ and from which they tell the story’ (p. 91). The result of this,
Taylor argues, is twofold: ‘the performance frame in pantomime is revealed
not only to distance the audience from the story, but to draw the audience
into complicity with the comedians in the perception of the performance
world, pantoland, as unique, original, anarchic and fun’ (p. 102).
A key running theme of the book is how pantomime trades on the
seemingly opposing ideas of tradition and anarchy. Taylor points out that
there is something ‘carnivalesque’ about pantomime, from the transfor-
mational storylines and scenery (p. 88) to the central cross-dressing roles
of the Dame and Principal Boy which add to ‘the confusion of reversals
and transgressions that links pantomime with the anarchic fun of the car-
nivalesque’ (p. 106). In pantomime, ‘taboos are challenged in a safe and
permissive environment’ (p. 43) but crucially the audience is complicit in
the anarchic impulses that threaten to derail the story through the slap-
stick and messy ‘slosh’ scenes: ‘the audience is often involved in encouraging
the mess and devastation and this increases the involvement of the audi-
ence in the game and the excitement when the target is hit’ (p. 43).
What makes this book particularly valuable is the fact that the more
scholarly considerations are balanced by pragmatic examples of pan-
tomime in performance. The book abounds with excerpts from recent
pantomime scripts and an impressive number of production photographs that
root Taylor’s discussion in concrete examples. She also draws extensively on
her own experience of working in the band pit of pantomimes and on inter-
views with current writers, producers, actors and musicians who provide
fascinating insights into the kinds of cultural and pragmatic considerations
that are currently helping to shape the evolution of British pantomime.
Altogether, British Pantomime Performance is an informative, thought-
provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read. The clarity of the writing, the
breadth of knowledge and the obvious enthusiasm of the author for her
subject makes this an excellent resource for students, scholars and practi-
tioners of British musical theatre. Given the relative lack of scholarship in
this area, it may also help to stimulate further investigation into this
hugely popular but largely under-appreciated art form.
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Books received
The following books have been received and will be reviewed in a future
issue of the journal:
Atkey, M. (2006), Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre,
Toronto: Natural Heritage Books.
Banfield, S. (2007), Jerome Kern [Yale Broadway Masters Series], New Haven and
London: Yale University Press.
Clayton, M. and Zon, B. (2007), Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s
– 1940s: Portrayal of the East, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Everett, W. (2007), Sigmund Romberg [Yale Broadway Masters Series], New Haven
and London: Yale University Press.
Fields, A. (2007), Tony Pastor: Father of Vaudeville, Jefferson, NC & London:
McFarland.
Hischak, T. S. (2007), The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Laing, H. (2007), The Gendered Score: Music in 1940s Melodrama and the Woman’s
Film, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Miller, S. (2007), Strike up the Band: a New History of Musical Theatre, Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
Morcom, A. (2007), Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema [SOAS Musicology Series],
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Osborne, C. (2007), The Opera Lover’s Companion, New Haven and London: Yale
University Press.
Smith, M. W. (2007), The Total Work of Art: from Bayreuth to Cyberspace, New York
and London: Routledge.
Wollman, E. L. (2006), The Theater Will Rock, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Music on stage
Delegate rate is £150.00 for the two days and performances exclusive
of accommodation.
Articles
5–32 Emancipation or exploitation? Gender liberation and adult musicals in 1970s
Studies in
Musical
New York
Elizabeth L. Wollman
33–50 Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre
Marc Napolitano
Theatre
51–60 Fiddler on the Roof: considerations in a new age
Charles Eliot Mehler
61–81 Representation of Clytemnestra and Cassandra in Taneyev’s Oresteia
Anastasia Belina
83–100 Flooding the concrète: Clastoclysm and the notion of the ‘continuum’ as a
conceptual and musical basis for a postdramatic music-theatre performance
Demetris Zavros
Re: Act
101–108 Detached signifiers, dead babies and demon dwarves: Bieito’s Dutchman
Kara McKechnie
109–120 Reviews