As the first Glyndebourne festival of the millennium gets under way in Sussex, Trevor Stammers offers some Christian reflections on opera.
'Opera should make a perfect circle, the drama making the music and the music making the drama', according to Sir Peter Hall. As a lover of both drama and music, I guess this is why, for me, opera is the most sublime of all art forms. And I frequently find God at the opera house too.
February this year saw the world premiere of Mark-Antony Turnage's new opera, The Silver Tassie, based on the play of the same name by Sean O'Casey. Receiving high critical acclaim, it tells the story of Harry Heegan, a football hero who has won the cup (the Silver Tassie of the title) for his team, just before he is sent to the trenches in the Great War. In the subsequent fighting, Harry is wounded and is permanently paralysed. His girlfriend consequently deserts him for his best friend, Barney.
Suffering
Central to the work is the question: 'How can there be a God when there is so much suffering in the world, and so much hypocrisy in those claiming to know him?' The second act is utterly compelling, and opens with a solitary voice 'as if from another world' reciting over the red glow of the battlefield': 'And I prophesied, and the breath came out of them, and the sinews came away from them, and behold, a shaking, and their bones fell asunder, bone from his bone, flesh from his flesh, and they died. The exceeding great army became a valley of dry bones'. This reversal of Scripture overlying the horror of war made chilling theatre, and though I'm sure many in the audience like the woman next to me were unaware the source came from Ezekiel, it was a wonderful opportunity to tell her where to find the original version.
Despite the overwhelming bitterness of Harry over his loss, perhaps he does not lose his faith completely. 'Dear God', he cries in his closing soliloquy, 'this crippled form is still your child.' In any event, he certainly made me think about the difficulties of keeping faith in the midst of a collapsing world.
The Silver Tassie is one of those rare contemporary operas that I am sure will endure, and go on to be performed worldwide.
Most of the standard repertoire though, was written decades or even centuries ago. Opera producers have the task of taking such stories from the past and presenting them in a form which modern audiences can understand and relate to, yet without destroying the composer's original intended meaning. This is exactly the challenge faced by preachers, of course, so perhaps mutual lessons could be learned.
In discussing her recent English National Opera staging of Bach's St. John Passion, opera and theatre producer, Deborah Warner, said of the work: 'I found the final part so unbearably moving, that I've not cried so much in a rehearsal, ever. I'm not a believer, but I'm terribly affected by it. It's the only thing that could convert me, because the music carried one somewhere astonishing.' Evangelists, please note.
Christian imagery
I have certainly seen some compelling Christian imagery on the London Coliseum stage (the home of English National Opera) over the years. Perhaps the most poignant was a production of Beethoven's Fidelio. Subtitled 'Married Love', the themes of faithfulness and redemption are central to this operatic masterpiece. How appropriate then, that it should be staged on a giant wooden cross lying flat. At the end of Act 1, Lenore, the heroine, pleads with the evil Pizzaro to allow his political prisoners out of their cells to get some fresh air. As the opera's most famous piece (the prisoners' chorus) begins, the cross lifts itself up in the semi-darkness and the prisoners stumble out from under its shadow, blinking in the ever-increasing light, as they sing the word 'freedom'. It is the most powerful stage image of what Christ did for us on the cross.
Salome
Another electrifying evening was provided by David Leveaux's production of Richard Strauss's Salome. The scene is Herod's court. While some soldiers and courtiers are discussing Herod and the princess Salome, the voice of John the Baptist (Jokanaan in the opera) arises from his prison: 'After me shall come Another mightier than I. I am not worthy so much as to unloose the latchet of His shoes.' Jokanaan's cell is little wider than a drain, and the contrast with the breadth of his spiritual vision is striking, as his voice resonates around the palace. It eventually has such an effect on Herod's dysfunctional family, that they are literally climbing the walls on the iron ladders that surround the prison house!
When Jokanaan cries out: 'So the day is come, the day of the Lord, and I hear upon the mountains the feet of Him who shall be Saviour of the world', Herod asks: 'What does that mean? The Saviour of the world?' 'Concerning Messiah who has come', the Jews reply. 'He has come and everywhere he worketh miracles. The daughter of Jairus was dead. He raised her from the dead.' Herod, wonderfully portrayed by John Graham-Hall as a petulant, drunken schoolboy who has never grown up, then stamps his foot, and shouts: 'I forbid him to do that. It would be terrible if the dead came back.' It is a momentous operatic moment.
Peter Grimes
My final example is Tim Albery's production of Benjamin Britten's first successful operatic masterpiece, Peter Grimes.
Set in the coastal village of Aldeburgh and based on George Crabb's poem, The Borough, the sea dominates this work from the opening chords. The production faithfully reflects this emphasis with a giant canvas of waves replacing the usual curtains. In Grimes, as in Scripture, the sea is ambivalent and unpredictable. It is both provider and destroyer, a source of wonder and of fear. 'The earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number', declares the psalmist (Psalm 104, 24-5). Grimes recognises that the teeming sea is his only hope of prosperity. 'I'll fish the sea dry, sell the good catches. That wealthy merchant Grimes will set up household and shop, you will all see it!'
The unknown God
However, that same sea has already claimed one of Grimes's boy apprentices and the villagers are ever aware of the treachery of its waters. 'And if the spring tide eats the lands again, till e'en the cottages and cobbled walls of fishermen are billets for the thieving waves, which take, as if in sleep, thieving for thieving's sake'. The awesome reality of being swept away totally, by the sea, is also a recurrent theme of the Old Testament: 'He who made the Pleiades and Orion . . . and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the seas, and pours them over the face of the land - the Lord is His name' (Amos 5.8).
For Peter Grimes, however, the Lord who created the sea and stars remains the unknown God. In his famous aria 'Now the Great Bear and Pleiades . . .' Peter confesses his agnosticism. Who can both make sense of the world and give it a fresh start? No one. 'But if the horoscope's bewildering, like a flashing turmoil of a shoal of herring, who, who, who, who,' he repeats, 'can turn the skies back and begin again?' Such spiritual confusion makes his later cries of 'God have mercy upon me' sound more like despair than prayer.
But if Grimes fully acknowledges his spiritual emptiness, the villagers are unaware of theirs. The production emphasises that the opera is as much about the self-righteous community of the Borough as it is about Grimes. They are constantly on stage, watching, eavesdropping, pointing the finger and giving Grimes no rest. He is just one passing interlude in the life of the Borough, and any subsequent outsider would fare no better.
Hold the gospel light
In the first act, the scene in The Boar Inn reveals the hypocrisy of the villagers. Through Bob Boles, the local Methodist preacher, calls on them to 'Hold the gospel light before the cataract that blinds (Grimes's) eyes', he and the other villagers cannot see the planks in their own eyes. Boles himself gets drunk and attacks Peter with a bottle. Ned Keene, the village apothecary and quack, is the archetypal wide-boy who will supply anything if the price is right. The widow, Mrs. Sedley, considers herself above drinking in the inn at all. The only reason she is there is because she's a laudanum addict and cannot wait to get her 'pills' from Ned, who has arranged to meet her there. But laudanum is not the only poison to which she is addicted. The venom of gossip holds her in its thrall, and she later leads the chorus of vengeance 'He who despises us we'll destroy.'
It is Mrs. Sedley who, late for church on Sunday, witnesses Ellen Orford, the widowed schoolmistress who takes pity on Grimes, questioning young John, Grimes's apprentice. As off-stage villagers chant the liturgy for Morning Prayer in the church, it forms an ironic commentary on Ellen's questioning as she gradually notices the signs that John has been abused. 'There's a tear in your coat. Was that done before you came?' And we have done those things that we ought not to have done. John, what are you trying to hide? (The boy remains silent.) O Lord, open thou our lips.
At the end of the opera, the curtain falls on the villagers returning to their work, unaware of their part in driving Grimes to his death. The production is an unforgettable portrayal of the consequences of self-righteousness replacing the grace of God in a small religious community. Does opera then have anything to say to the people of God? If we have ears to hear, it does.
London Coliseum Box Office 020 7632 8300. Tickets from £2.50. Season's brochure available on request.
