286
Mass.? Gertrude Stein's unflag–
gingly dramatic sense of emotion
permits her to do almost anything
she wants with her "theme." Susan
B.'s emotional dilemmas are not
much different from those of An–
tigone, and Stein has the good
sense to let the music and the pro–
duction do most of her atmospheric
work for her. Her appeal to the
audience may be childlike, but it is
also canny; for the truth of the
matter is that the audience doesn't
want to be told any more about
Susan B. Anthony than it knows al–
ready. It can go to the Encyclo–
pedia for that. This note of lyric
skepticism, or skeptical lyricism, is
struck at the beginning and carried
successfully through to the end.
Great freedom is therefore left
to composer and producer. The
Harvard production provided An–
gel More, Daniel Webster's "dead,
former sweetheart," with a won–
derfully silly little set of wings
which always raised a sympathetic
titter in her more poignant mo–
ments. John Adams looked more
like Peacock's Scythrop than any–
one seen on the streets of Quincy.
All this seemed charming rather
than coy, like the random ejacula–
tions of people in Chekhov. Thom–
son,
in
his music, has followed the
lead of Berlioz (and Tchaikovsky
in
Eugene Onegin)
and written a
lyric, interpretative score, drama–
tic only at second remove, a score
very attentive to the words, rich
and "Germanic"
in
its texture but
also brassy, solemn
1
militant
1
so-
phisticated, lyric and witty by turn.
It is also remarkably free of the
sometimes too-self-conscious Amer–
icanism of Aaron Copland, un–
ashamed to be a hybrid and mak–
ing no effort to hide the fact be–
hind a specious show of modem–
ism.
What we finally have to thank,
however, is Gertrude Stein's im–
placable feminism and her grasp
of emotion in the theater. The
opera has real progression, result–
ing from nothing more sensational
than a forceful woman's gift for
making other people recognize
their true minds. Webster becomes
"human" without surrendering any
of his Websterishness. The minor
characters are present mainly to be
entertained; but they see some–
thing done that can't be undone,
and are thereby changed. The pres–
sure is always emotional and psy–
chological, as it
is
in
"Melanc–
tha," but because of the many di–
versions musical and otherwise,
far less' tautological than is usual
with Stein. Contours are generous
but not oppressive; there is always
room for something else. This is
how opera should be written, and
it is not likely to be so well written
again for a long time. I don't
mean to compare it to
Four Saints.
It is probably not as good. But this
is meant to be a tribute rather than
a review. I had the feeling that
one of the lost, late children of
the '20s had arrived home for good.
R. W. Flint
