FINANCIAL TIMES: And what came from the periphery?
FUHRMANN: A flow of raw materials, because young people (born after 1949) insisted on being involved. They had participated neither in the war nor in the beginnings of the revolution.
FINANCIAL TIMES: And what was added from the center?
FUHRMANN: The ideas of Mao Tse-tung.
FINANCIAL TIMES: So, twice we have ideas. From the opera and operettas, and from Mao Tse-tung?
FUHRMANN: Right. In China the question was, how could they avoid the alienation via technocratic processes that we know from the Soviet Union?
FINANCIAL TIMES: Earlier you asked: how can one keep a revolution that has eliminated substantial social ills (for example, forty million opium addicts were forcibly weaned from the drug) in revolutionary motion?
FUHRMANN: Trotsky called this the problem of PERMANENT REVOLUTION. To begin with, how can we retain the technical intelligence—on which every revolution, every advance depends—in the revolutionary process?
FINANCIAL TIMES: Has it been solved?
FUHRMANN: Not in the least. By the end, all political structures were destroyed. What remained was the dictatorship of the tripartite committees.2
FINANCIAL TIMES: Whose fault was it?
FUHRMANN: There are no judges in revolutions.
FINANCIAL TIMES: Can revolutions be repeated?
FUHRMANN: Definitely.
FINANCIAL TIMES: Was it the ideas that were wrong, or their execution?
FUHRMANN: An excess of ideas vis-à-vis reality is certainly wrong.
FINANCIAL TIMES: Could it have been avoided?
FUHRMANN: You mean, should one have had no ideas?
FINANCIAL TIMES: No—should one have taken a wait-and-see approach? If we are surprised by the result, does that mean we now understand better the ideas we had then?
FUHRMANN: That’s more like it.
Christoph Schlingensief
The Complete Version of a Baroque Idea from Christoph Schlingensief
Jewish graves from the twelfth century bear the emblem of a hare. Oberrottenführer Hartmut Mielke noticed the symbol on the stones when his column leveled Jewish cemeteries in Central Germany in 1943 so that water tanks for fire engines could be set up there. The motif is repeated on seventeenth-century gravestones: prone, “sleeping” or “slain” hares.
This, as the Oberrottenführer knew — he was a local historian in peacetime — contrasted with the heathen portrayal of hares in the Celtic area south of the Rhön. There, hares are documented on sacrificial stones, not on graves.
The cousin of Friedrich Ludwig “Turnvater” Jahn, Alfred-Erwin Jahn, described in the Journal for German Prehistoric Research, volume 14, pp. 143 ff. (1809), the collision of the hare as a fertility symbol (as the spring myth of the goddess Ostara) with the “theatricalism of Golgatha”: “the sorrowful farewell of the Son of God for a long time.”
This passage inspired Richard Wagner’s “Good Friday Spell,” which he inserted into Act 3 of Parsifal. The pain of the cross and the cheerfulness of “vernally laughing nature” struck him as suitable contrasts to express the “straining of compassion.”
The scenery conceived by Wagner from this perspective was now taken up by Christoph Schlingensief in his Bayreuth production of Parsifal. He had spent a long time searching in the score and texts of the piece for something that truly touched him.
In a basement of Humboldt University in Berlin, a dead hare, acquired in a specialty shop for game meat, was given over to the process of decay for several weeks. Walter Lenertz set up a 35mm Arriflex camera with a time-lapse apparatus. The light was adjusted. It was ensured that there were flies in the small chamber. The camera filmed the decomposition with time leaps over a space of several weeks.
An insight from Walter Benjamin’s study The Origin of German Tragic Drama was confirmed. There Benjamin discusses a metaphor that is rather unpalatable in daily life: the hairy animal body being broken open by living, liquefied forces operating inside, so-called worms. The skeleton emerges. It was this kind of “dying nature,” which already had “new life forming hastily” within it, that the time-lapse camera presented. It transpired that Benjamin was right when he called the “forward-thrusting intensity of maggots of different sizes in the ruined landscape of the expired hare” distressing.
The sight of the decomposing hare in a large-scale projection during the ‘Good Friday Spell’ caused the festival audience in Bayreuth some difficulty. They were not, after all, watching the “resurrection” of a hare, but rather the “continuation of life in the forms of decay”: others living off what has died. By the end the hare had dissolved and worms were writhing, likewise “moribund,” because the basement held no further food for them after consumption of the hare. That was DIFFICULT TO BEAR AS A MEANS OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR AN EVENING, but apt as a contribution to finding the truth.
At the international press conference after the dress rehearsal, Schlingensief defended himself against the accusation that his concept was “pessimistic.” He could not see anything pessimistic or optimistic about the maggots’ greed for life shown by the camera. Rather, it was a positive thing that the camera was capable of recording such a thing, enabling the events to be repeated time and again in the minds of future observers. What was “rebirth” if not something like that! “Overcoming of the overcomer.” The seriousness of the music proved that; something of that kind could not be presented without shocks. Wagner’s notes, tamed by Pierre Boulez, could not alleviate the shock.
A Second Titanic
As fires laid waste to the city, the opera in Smyrna continued to play its repertoire. The impresario Colonel Shubalov (head of the St. Petersburg Ballet, escaped Russia post–1917, later director of the Smyrna opera) could think of no better way to protect the valuable ensemble than to play an opera or operetta from start to finish each evening. If only not to appear to be “desperate prey.” In the boxes and the orchestra sat Turkish cavalry officers. What better protection for the opera house?
As long as the performances took place in French, the Turks—who belonged to the upper classes—could follow the plot. They regarded it as an honor to be invited to such a cosmopolitan entertainment. During the day, the master carpenter and stagehands worked tirelessly to put together the sets so that they would in no way provoke the occupying powers (for example, in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio). The ballet corps and the sopranos had come from St. Petersburg as part of the wave of immigration resulting from the October Revolution. The wooden lining of the auditorium imitated that of the State Opera House in Budapest. Enchanting acoustics, if only because the temple of art had been wrought from wood—though it was also a fire hazard.
Those in Smyrna who wished to keep themselves and their loved ones safe showed up for these performances. Only in such surroundings—from orchestra seat to orchestra seat, from box to box—were the Turkish commanders approachable. They generously promised writs of protection.
It was an attempt, in extreme circumstances, to form a kind of SOCIETY. Until then, among tradesmen, this had not been necessary. One had gone to the opera or operetta merely to amuse oneself. Now, under the murderous regime of the Turkish military divisions, the convention of listening to musical dramas or following cheerful musical nonsense in ceremonial uniform represented a LAST REFUGE. It was clumsy workers, not the Turkish occupying force, who caused this “steamship of civilization” to burn. The Smyrna opera house became an expanse of rubble for other reasons than did the rest of the city. The Turks were not punishing the opera; they were punishing the pride of the Greeks.
–Count Shubalov, why didn’t you manage to save this admirable temple of art, though you came close?
— The Smyrna opera is neither smaller nor less beautiful than the opera in Paris.
— Yes, but it still burned down.
— For no co
mpelling reason.
— That’s what’s so tragic about it.
— It destroyed my self-confidence. I believed that I could save the steamship.
— Did you see the danger coming?
— Of course. And I went out to meet it. To establish a relationship of mutual trust with the supreme command of the Turkish cavalry division . . . that’s not easy for a Russian. But for an aristocrat who has been expelled by the Soviet revolutionary government, the commander of a ballet corps, it’s not impossible. Nothing so beguiles the Turkish cavalry officers as a confirmation that they belong to European civilization. They believe themselves to be Europeans.
— Which the Greeks dispute.
— For the Turks it’s the other way around—it is the Greeks who are the barbarians. Ship-sinkers.
— And themselves?
— Children of a future Europe.
— Domiciled in Byzantium?
— Domiciled in the opera house of Smyrna. This was their encounter with a “European salon.” They were delighted.
— They had the power, too. And so why were you not able to protect this valuable building?
— The wood that imitated the Budapest opera house burned like tinder. What we doused were stones. The stones are still standing.
— And a reconstruction?
— At the moment, the foreign currency for that is lacking.
Cavalleria Rusticana, an Opera about Strangers’ Lives
A slight Sicilian is set to marry, per his mother’s wishes, a young woman named Santuzza. However, he is not cut out for romantic relationships, and is more likely to be found seeking salvation with his pals in taverns than conjugally coddling a woman. Nevertheless, when the honor of his betrothed is besmirched by the all-powerful carter Alfio’s inflammatory words, he must defend her. Yes—as a sign of bold defiance he must bite the ear of the physically superior carter. Then, in the duel, he will let himself be killed.
For Santuzza, this solves nothing.
In none of its particulars did this plot pertain to the doctor (an autodidact) who accompanied the soprano on his violin. The singer, accompanying herself on the piano, sang Santuzza’s scene. Afterward, both played the intermezzo. He, the doctor, would never have bitten a stronger man in the ear. He would have found avenues of escape. He was a city person.
* * *
1 In the nucleus of an atom dwell three colors, unremarkable so long as they are together. Indifferent, uneventful. But if one of these colors were pulled just a few millimeters away from the others, LONGING would pull them all toward each other with energies sufficient to illuminate the planets for about three weeks; and this is just one of the numerous subatomic particle types that make up the elements.
2 In light of the upheavals at the end of the Cultural Revolution, tripartite committees were formed, uniting one representative each from the REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS, the PARTY, and the PEOPLE’S ARMY into a dictatorial governing body.
VI Blast Furnaces of the Soul
One Morning, Seven Days after my Fifth Birthday
My fifth birthday, 1937. My mother is very pregnant, in her eighth month. A week later, news reaches her of her father’s death. She sits at the secretary in the study, cries, writes letters, “works off her grief”—but the tears still flow, unconsoled. When she has recounted the details often enough, written down the particulars in enough letters, the incomprehensible fact that she is now fatherless will be integrated into her new life.
She’s not completely alone. I’m loitering around the gas fireplace. Over it is a bookshelf on which sits a red morocco-bound set of Shakespeare’s Collected Works. Five years old, I can’t read the books. I can write my first name in capital letters. The volumes, part of my mother’s dowry, were imported from Berlin to Halberstadt. She has never read the books, either. One can take the books down from the shelf, finger them. The paper is tissue-thin. Turning over the pages, one senses: a valuable possession, not to be compared with the rough paper of the illustrated magazines or the daily newspaper. Next to the multi-volume luxury edition sits a guide to opera.
In my concrete memory (that is, when I concentrate on my impressions and leave out what I only “know”), I cannot tell the two books apart. Even though the paper is different, the books sit beside each other over the warming fire. So that the PROMISE of the “guide to opera” (considering the reverence with which my father takes it from the shelf) and the respectful FINGERING of the Shakespeare Collected Works (when the books are dusted, it is done with conspicuous care), blur together. Near me sits a usually cheerful, now disconsolate mother, and thus, for me, more open and tolerant (I’m careful not to whine, try to escape notice entirely, so she won’t send me away; it is a long, happy morning). And so my devotion to opera, the gesamtkunstwerk of plot and music, came about before I could read or knew much about operas. First comes the ranking of things whose worth is measured by parents, then come the things themselves.
Following the Voice Where It Wishes to Go
This singer possesses a voice that can express every emotional nuance between a whisper and a scream. But “possesses” is the wrong word, since this voice is such a subtle instrument that no one, not even she whose voice it is, can really master it. The singing occurs, it rushes up, surprising even her, and her voice is not an instrument, but a blessing. In conversation, this singer has a good sense of humor. While working, she is intently focused and appears to be “not of this world.”
Not long ago, she played SENTA WITH THE POWDER KEG in a staging by Peter Konwitschny. Breathless in another way than after singing a long cantilena to the end, she dragged a keg to the middle of the stage. The Dutchman and his crew returned to their ship. The inhabitants of the Norwegian port city were in a tizzy. The keg had a fuse. Senta lit it. With the explosion, Wagner’s melodrama fizzled out.
On another day, the singer must get her bearings as Kundry, in Parsifal. How can a fool, the pupil of an overwhelmed mother, be made “world-clairvoyant,” as the composer would have it? A practical approach is more appropriate than, as the libretto stipulates, mysterious knowledge of the past. The young hero has an unpleasant character. He lacks empathy, is ruthless to animals and plagued by phobias. He is supposed to join the brotherhood of believers. Seducing him won’t work. The singer thinks: it is not my republic being founded here.
She would rather sing the role of Parsifal. Since Syberberg’s film, we know that in the second act, when Kundry kisses the chaste man, he transforms into a girl, switching “soul groups.” If she could take over his person, she could set the hero straight. Best would be if she were to sing both parts and thus make a single character out of Kundry and Parsifal. But then the character would no longer be a character, but a living person.
The putting back together of separated components could turn the opera into a PROMISING COMPILATION; it could bring a “spark of hope” into the music house. If the singer had her way, no swans need die. The magician Klingsor would not have to die just because he, the outcast, is attracted by the brotherhood. Along with the elaborate sin, chastity would be annulled, two of humanity’s blind alleys would fall away, and, from a bifurcation approximately 100,000 years ago, a lovely sequence of tendernesses and kindnesses would branch off. One should, said the singer in conversation with me, place the overture from Rheingold at the end of Parsifal, and finish with the first human voice, the call of the Rhinemaiden, greeting the glittering rays of the sun on the cool expanse of water.
The singer has always wanted to sing this keen sound from the primeval world. But she is so famous, and so in demand at all the great opera houses, that she is never offered such a minor part. She is too good for a Rhinemaiden, and even if she did get the role, she would never be able to focus on just this one sound—and she doesn’t want to sing the entire role, she just wants to articulate this one cry. The only remaining option is to convince the musical directo
r to add this inspired sliver of music from the Rheingold to the lugubriously male and somewhat miserable finale of Parsifal, although it would require the entire overture to be effective. She wouldn’t expect applause—she’d expect delight. In her life as a singer, this woman will have about 7,600 evenings’ worth of singing. For a few of the most beautiful minor matters in the body of opera literature, it is not enough.
“It was one romantic relationship, no superfluous words”1
They couldn’t exchange any words, since they did not understand each other’s language. In the darkness of the stables where they were touching one another, it would have been foolish to hold forth. Far away, outside, the noise of the hunting party. They drank from small silver cups, unpacked their provisions from parchment paper. Thanks to a stable door padlocked from the inside, the two were cut off from the outside world. Though from different stations, they immediately felt close.
They were also concentrating far too much to be able to talk. Perhaps they could have made use of their words as they were using their hands, to touch each other with vocal expression (without having to make sense). But they didn’t do so, because the fervor of the touching made them take leave of their senses. Members of the hunting party could have shaken the stable door—they would not have let themselves be disturbed. He had clutched at her as he unsaddled her horse. She had clutched at him. They had known each other for perhaps thirty minutes. It was as if they had broken through a hole in the floor of the Earth. No longer of this world. And they gave no thought to how they would ever reemerge—disheveled and, more to the point, unable to be seen together—from their vault. What they were doing was punishable by law. He was a forced laborer.2 The thought ran through her mind: I must not put him in harm’s way. She was not indiscreet. But nothing could hold them back. Mutely, they panted.
Temple of the Scapegoat Page 14
