Daphne: a Review, with Digressions

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I went to an opera the other day. It was that delightfully casual; argus_in_tights called an hour before the show to say that geniusoutlaws had a ticket begging, so I threw on something glamourous and swanned off to be transported.

About ten years ago, in one of my random attempts to become Cultured, I read an entire encyclopaedic book on the history of opera. I immediately forgot its entire contents. I remember nothing except thinking vaguely that I would probably like the works of Richard Strauss.

Fortunately, Pacific Opera Victoria cares about me, and they are in the midst of staging Daphne. I felt like I'd been handed a beautiful picture-book, its pages made of music.

Strauss has taken a minimal Greek myth, yet another "God tries to assault a nymph, she runs away, he turns her into something immobile," creation story, and made it into an evocation of psychological distress -- alienation from one's community, fear of adulthood. It is Daphne's conflicted desires, not Apollo's will, that are the heart of the opera, and her final transformation is a kindness rather than a punishment.



Daphne's struggle

Though my sympathies are with the Dionysian revel, I remember what it's like to feel fundamentally divided from other people's joy by something you can neither articulate nor overcome. Ecstasy that does not include you (but threatens to sweep you up) is terrifying for its loss of self, for the violation implicit in it.

Everything in the human world is a violation for Daphne, and I will now have to draw in a lesser but beloved musical work and say, you know, like The Last Unicorn. Or Portrait of a Lady. For a woman, historically, sexual awakening has also meant the sacrifice of most of her self-direction, and the threat of injury and violence, and this is present in both the text and this production. It seems to me that Strauss' further gift is to make Daphne stand for the sensitive self in all human beings.

My friends, it seems to me that we possess between us a larger-than-average quotient of hyperreactive nervous systems. Does that sound right?

Learning to live in the world has always been, for me, learning to live with constant feelings of violation, insult, injury, pain and fear. I choose to do it because these are the price of the world's joys, of sexual, artistic, social and natural pleasure. For me this has been the journey to adulthood.

Daphne's tragedy is that she cannot make, or is prevented from making, that crossing by the betrayal of Apollo and by her own pain. She wants to serve Apollo as what he represents: beauty, art, the divinity of nature; but she cannot enjoy or accept his sexual advances. She feels bewildered and betrayed.

The beauty of the forest

It is impossible to talk about the production without talking about the sets, which were extraordinary. When we walked in, I thought some kind of translucent scrim was hanging over the stage, but it was a fountain of silvery-green strands of leaves, hanging densely from above. These lifted gradually as the opera progressed, and then descended to embrace Daphne during her transformation. Whenever they moved, the leaves would shake down the strand one after another like a Jacob's Ladder.

There were other wonderful moments. Gaea's song of life brought forth strong green shoots from the earth. A pond managed both to have water in it to splash when Leukippos threw away his flute, and to later contain two glittering mermaids.

Sometimes there was nothing to do but look at the fantastic scenery. This was, after all, a dress rehearsal. People were saving their voices, and not every technical issue had been worked out -- possibly the stage miking? Daphne herself was always clear, and the chorus were reliably sonorous, but sometimes the orchestra completely overpowered the other singers. Thus it seemed the daring choice had been made to have Apollo mime his entire part. I think Gaea, too, ended up sounding oddly staticky for an earth goddess.

Musically, I am, as ever, Not the Best Person to Say, but I enjoyed it. There were passages when the foregrounding of a particular orchestral section was wonderfully moving. The flute theme, of course, for Leukippos ("white horse"?) but I am thinking in particular of a string passage which I would locate for you if I could make any sense of my notes.

I would have liked even more of Daphne and Sookhyung Park's voice; I kept waiting for the moment I really got to hear her give 'er. This is why we really should pay to see the actual show.

Apparently the director [ETA: The conductor, rather -- that makes more sense. Thanks, argus_in_tights] adapted the score for POV's smaller orchestra. Never having heard the original, I cannot say how it compared -- argus_in_tights?

Our favorite chorister noted that this was a static production. I found the leads no more moribund than usual for opera -- that is, very -- but I could see moments where the chorus could have been used to create motion and visual engagement, a richness of movement commeasurate with the lushness of the set -- particularly in the Dionysian ritual, which was otherwise so visually delightful. Of which...

Satyrs and satires

Here is an interesting sort of irony.

I've been lucky with my seating in the past. Dress rehearsals are for poor but serious fans, cheap hangers-on of the cast (me) and hordes of noisy children. Usually I am surrounded by other delightful cheapskates in our Winners best. This time I lost the draw and was sitting in front of a gaggle of girltweens.

It was really fine until we got to the orgy.

The male choristers had wonderful ram's horns of straw, and the female choristers had wild straw wigs. It was gloriously pagan. Then the satyrs showed up.

They were not, I hasten to add, ithyphallic. I thought they were rather wonderful, but you know my weakness for satyrs. They had shaggy white thighs and great coiled horns with studded rims that looked like they were made of leather, and they were all muscle and lust. (Possibly they got a little carried away with the hip-thrusting occasionally, but who can blame them?)

The whole grouping, satyrs, nymphs, revellers, gods, was a wonderful visual.

There is something inherently ridiculous about a satyr, even the most potent. Classical satyrs were often supposed to be absurd figures of excess. My favorite are the Pure Sex species, but I have to acknowledge the complexity of their symbolism.

So out comes the trio of satyrs, and the girls behind us start giggling madly.

"Ew! Gross!" they said. I bit my tongue. Then they had one of those self-conscious revelations people have at that age -- they became delighted with themselves for being grossed out and amused by the satyrs. So they kept laughing all through the Dionysian revel.

Dionysus, of course, would not have been annoyed, but I was. I reflected, though; did I remember what it was like to be that age -- to be cognitively, intellectually, quite mature, but to still find sexual expression foreign and grotesque? I thought I did. I thought I could easily imagine being the one delighted with myself, at nine or ten, for seeing how ridiculous all this was, while the adults seemed not to have noticed it at all. Stupid adults, always buying into whatever they're told is good.

I wouldn't have known at that age, as they didn't know, as I hope they won't know until they want to, that the adults had a different kind of knowledge. We did still recognize the foolishness of the men with the oversized horns and the shaggy pelts and the thrusting pelvises, but we knew that we were the satyrs and nymphs, that their absurdity, their clumsiness and lust stood for our own.

Other uncollected thoughts

The opera debuted on October 15, 1938 in Dresden, Germany. If you can imagine, this delicate, dreamy work premiered three weeks before Krystallnacht. It is difficult to know what to make of that.

Though the Dionysian rite seems like a joyous and positive thing, it is hard not to try to read this story against its times. The participation in mass ritual and excess becomes much more ominous, Daphne's bewilderment and rejection all the more reasonable and moving.

{rf}

Comments

A sigh of contentment

[argus-in-tights.livejournal.com]

This is why I must always invite you to the opera. For all my discontent with the work you find the most amazing things in it. I knew it was a visual feast, though I can't see much of it. Mostly I spend my time trying to see the conductor (who is the one who did the reduction - I have a recording of the full thing if you'd like to listen). I must say it was a production that only came together when we finally had the orchestra, and in many ways it is as much about them as everyone else. Yes, Appolo apparently is singing much better now, and may have been marking some during the preview, however, the orchestra is just plain that loud sometimes. Imagine if there were twice as many of them as there were supposed to be. Much thicker string sound, and many more odd instruments. Best part of all this is that the whole thing was recorded for CBC, so sometime next fall we'll be able to hear it all again. I recall hearing our Tempest and being astounded. I'm rather looking forward to this one.

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