PARTISAN REVIEW
This is a new and complex idea, much too complex to be projected
in the standard cliches of operatic language. Only strict realism is
convincing here, and the story requires the utmost clarity and exact
definition in terms of place and time. Atm0sphere and text become even
more important ingredients than before. And thus more than two
hundred and
fifty
years after
its
inception we see opera veer again
towards prosody. (In classicism, especially Mozart, the text had to
be
constructed according to the symmetry of the musical theme. But
in
the later prosodic treatment the melody draped itself around the
words like tights.) In Moussorgsky this is formulated theoretically and
practically. His operas reek with the atmosphere of folklore and his vocal
line is a direct imitation of Russian speech. Although this is not so ob–
vious
in Puccini,
his lyric vocal line is different from Moussorgsky's terse
cadences only to the extent that the harmonious Italian language
dif–
fers from Russian.
Peter Grimes
is one of the end-products of this tradition of dis–
enchanted verbal realism. Social discomfort is embodied
in
a sadist; the
plot is placed in a specific time and a specific locality; prosody is carried
to the limit. But
Peter Grimes
comes at a
time
when the aesthetic of
verismo
does not fit that of twentieth-century music. Monteverde's
homophony, though originally motivated by literary consideration, ac–
tually rescued music from the excess of luxuriance and vagueness which
characterized the late Renaissance; and the symmetry of plot and the
shaping of the
ensembl~
numbers in Mozart's operas still conformed to
the principles of classicism. Wagner's mysticism resulted in a new har–
monic conception that widened the horizon of Romantic music. Mous–
sorgsky's realism gave a fresh rhythmical impact to Russian music and
even Puccini's
verismo
was not out of place in a world
in
which the
cantabile
of Romanticism was still ascendant.
But the twentieth century brings with it a new kind of highly
intricate and involved tonality and, with it, a return to the more
abstract forms of music. Alban Berg tried to solve the contradiction
between realism and abstraction by introducing large, absolute forms
such as the sonata, the fugue, and the variation in his operas
Wozzeck
and
Lulu.
If
these forms were convincing in these works, they were so,
not as absolute music, but because of the great dramatic energy with
which the composer had endowed them. Being too large and unwieldly
to
be
perceived as musical forms in a stage drama, the sonata, fugue,
and variation affected the listener in Berg's operas by the dramatic mean–
ing they contained.
Britten likewise senses the contradiction involved here and he tries
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