MUSIC IN REVIEW

Abstract

1 6 7 R M U S I C I N R E V I E W D E W E Y F A U L K N E R Once, in the late sixteenth century when it was new, opera was conceived as a modern imitation of Greek tragedy and its subject matter was classical only. Serious operas remained that way through the eighteenth century, but by the nineteenth century almost any topic could be considered suitable for an opera plot. A narrative merely had to be capable of working by means of opera’s standard forms – solo arias, ensembles, and so on. In mid-century Richard Wagner made opera truly serious again, returning it to its roots in myth but emphasizing its earnestness by jettisoning the standard forms. To Wagner, opera must now be a sung play, carried especially by the orchestral underlay of the sung text. Unfortunately, in following Wagner’s precepts composers soon forgot that their music must be interesting in itself and that how it was sung was a major part of why audiences came to opera performances. As Sir Thomas Beecham lectured to Maria Callas, the reason La Bohème has remained inordinately popular since 1896 is that it is full of ‘‘good tunes!’’ – which have had great singers performing them. The lack of both has doomed most new operas after Turandot in 1926; even Lulu (1937) did not become even somewhat popular until the 1970s. As is often bemoaned, opera today is a museum. 1 6 8 F A U L K N E R Y Even the silliness imposed upon it by Regietheater and its producers cannot undo the continuing basic desire of audiences to hear great singers, few though there be nowadays, perform music that will move them. But new operas continue to be written, and composers’ nets are being thrown ever more widely in the hope that new subject matter will save their pieces. Unsurprisingly, new operatic sources include films. New films, old films – if it has a plot and characters, composers will use it. Of course, since sung words take roughly twice as long as spoken ones, they will have to cut the film script. Likewise, they’ll probably need to reduce the number of characters , as well as the number of scenes, although modern staging and lighting techniques can get around this. More recent films, with their rapid cuts and jumps designed for the minuscule attention spans of modern younger audiences, make unsatisfactory sources, even for contemporary composers with their twitchy and irregular styles. But if carefully chosen, a film can be as good a basis for a successful opera as any other narrative. As always, the result depends on how it’s handled – and also on how it’s staged and sung. The Metropolitan Opera has staged two new operas drawn from movies, whose composers (Thomas Adès and Nico Muhly) are currently flavors of the month in England and the United States, respectively. Their film connections have provided good fodder for critics (including this one) to chew upon. To these I have added a popular composer’s new film opera that is making the rounds of smaller American houses (so far) and a fourth that is in English and based on an American movie but composed in Austria. There are others, even a Howard Shore opera based on The Fly (who knew?), but these four will su≈ce to show the variety of filmconnected work being produced and to enable us to assess (perhaps prematurely) its successes. Successes. Operas are among the most expensive artworks to produce and almost always lose money, especially at first. Only repetition makes them financially viable. So the big question here is whether audiences will clamor to hear these works again and again, with di√erent casts, conductors, and stagings to o√er new perspectives on them. All have been recorded, one way or another, so the public has a chance to make informed judgments about them. Frankly, I doubt that any of them will ever rival Bohème – or even Lulu – but odder things have happened. M U S I C I N R E V I E W 1...