Divine spark
David Pountney
Janacek's Tragic Operas Michael Ewans (Faber £7.95)
Janacek completed his seven mature operas between 1903 and his death in 1928, and the last four, Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropoulos Case. and From the House of the Dead were written is an astonishing burst of creativity after 1919. Even more remarkable is the fact that although his operatic output was con' centrated into the last third of his life, the stylistic progression from Jenufa to Fro" the House of the Dead is enormous. But the central preoccupation of all these works remains the same: to define and celebrate what is of worth in every human being. In Jenufa and Katya he approaches this directly, dealing with the personal fate of two heroines within realistic settiflgs. respectively peasant and bourgeois. In Jenufa, the simplest and most direct of his works, the rich seam of Moravian folk musi,e which forms the basis of his highly in& vidual style is still easily recognisable and' as if to establish his purpose from the begin' fling, this opera ends in a triumphant blaze of optimism. Jenufa and Laca are able .t0• break out of the crushing village moralitY which has brought such catastrophic violence into their lives, because of the deeP understanding they have attained — understanding which includes the ability t.° see into each other's private hell. It is this combination of objectivity and compassion which elevates Janacek's five great operas to the highest level.
This utter truthfulness, and stern resis,' tance to self-indulgence or sentimentality is, nowhere clearer than in the second act oi
Katya. This double love scene contrasts the carefree amoral love of Varvara and Kudrasj with the nervous, hesitant guilty passion of Boris and Katya, desperately seeking escape from their bourgeois family fetters. For them, Janacek creates wonderful moments of intense passionate expression, Which then instantly alter and wither into long, painful silences. And just as here he resists the temptation to allow this furtive Passion to flower into any kind of conventional operatic love scene, so at the end, after Katya's guilt-ridden confession and suicide, he does not ask for tears in the mawkish fashion of so many opera comPosers, but ends in a fury of rage and indignation.
In his last three operas, Janacek turned away from personal dramas, to confront the question of human worth from an increasingly philosophical angle. In The Cunning Little Vixen the humans are shown to be trivial, ignoble creatures, until one man, the Forester, allows himself to be drawn out of his daily cares, and into the deeply inevitable cyclical life of nature. There he experiences for a brief moment a kind of ecstasy, a vision of glory, which suddenly justifies and ennobles his existence. In The Makropoulos Case Janacek again grapples with the necessity of death. Here the 'vec' or 'thing' which has given Emilia Marty 300 years of life is seen to be a monstrous perversion of nature Which brings catastrophe to her, and to all Who come into contact with her. Without
the necessary guillotine of death, her life is perpetual ennui, and from her elongated perspective, ordinary human affairs are seen to be ridiculous and futile.
In The Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropoulos Case Janacek affirmed life by celebrating death, triumphantly in the former, bleakly and terribly in the latter. In his last opera, he tests his ultimate belief in humanity to the limit, by entering the Siberian prison where existence itself is a living death. Here he achieves the final refinement of his style, now so sparsely effective that he could dispense with plot altogether, and concentrate all his energies on the exploration of this terrible world of derelict humanity. Here too, he insists on telling the truth, and from that truth proclaiming his belief: 'In every creature, a spark of God.'
These five operas offer a riveting variety of experiences and challenges to both performer and audience, and yet they have had to struggle for a permanent place in the repertory. Regrettably, but understandably, the skilful but relatively facile output ot Puccini and Strauss has had more success. Similarly, scholars and musicologists in the West have been slow to show an interest. Several of the operas still lack fully researched editions. A new study as fascinating, thorough and serious as Michael Ewans's Janacek's Tragic Operas is therefore especially welcome. It is rather churlish, however, of Mr Ewans to claim that he is first in the field in English. Dr Chisholhfs book The Operas of Leos Janacek (Pergamon 1971) may be a trifle amateurish and clumsy, but it does offer a straightforward musical analysis, and enough background information to equip anyone for a thorough appreciation of the operas in performance.
Mr Ewans's approach is by no means so self-effacing. His title immediately draws attention to the presence of a particular thesis, since one would not normally describe The Cunning Little Vixen, for instance, as tragic. Mr Ewans's intention is to set his appreciation of six of Janacek's operas within a particular tradition of literary criticism of tragic drama, or 'Tragedy. from Aeschylus to Pinter.' as the Cambridge tripos paper was called. The emphasis that this approach throws upon the tremendous intelligence and seriousness of these operas is valuable, especially as one still hears Janacek patronised as the eccentric Moravian bumpkin who somehow stumbled on a vein of brilliant intuitive creativity.
Seen in this context, Janacek emerges as a mighty musical philosopher whose works rank alongside those of Berg as the crucial contributions to the twentieth-century repertoire. For the sake of preserving this thesis, the almost completely unknown Osud (Destiny) is included, and it is certainly a welcome bonus to know more about this work. Unfortunately, Mr Broucek's Excursions is jettisoned altogether, though
one would have thought it could have been discussed in an appendix, without compromising the clarity of Mr Ewans's argument.
In fact, after making a valid point in his excellent introduction, the attempt to maintain in detail, chapter by chapter, the links between these highly individual operas and a rather particular definition of the concept of 'tragic drama' turns out to be an unnecessary academic exercise which comes between us and Mr Ewans's most perceptive insights about the operas themselves. On the most banal level, it becomes irritating to have the word 'tragic' trotted out so many times. But this is a minor quibble beside the vivid intelligence which Mr Ewans brings to bear as he takes us through each opera in turn. His method is at times a risky one, for he attempts to paraphrase in prose both the impact and the technique of the
music and text. Actual musical examples are rather sparse nine for Jenufa as compared with Dr Chisholm's thirty and as Janacek, with each succeeding opera, becomes more complex and individual, Mr Ewans is lured into employing some rather glutinous prose to grapple with music that defies verbal paraphrase. The Makropoulos chapter contains some notable purple passages: 'and the music shows the cold tendrils of decoration proliferating, surrounding his words as if they were ten tables, probing the depths of time and reaching out for the woman to whom he is speaking . . .' This kind of highly fanciful speculation about the meaning of music is probably only valuable for oneself. But there is so much in this book that is clear, stimulating, and imaginative in its response to these great operas, that it is a must for all those who do not merely go canary-fancying to the opera.
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