by Eve McPherson
Before the nineteenth century, generally speaking, opera librettos were often based on mythological subjects and ancient history. The use of contemporary events and depictions of the lower classes (the verismo school of opera) steadily increased, however, during this time period. But setting recent real-life events could at times be controversial. In one famous example, Verdi faced the Neapolitan censors when he tried to have his opera Un ballo in maschera (1857) staged. The opera, based on the assassination of the Swedish king Gustavus III, was deemed too threatening to the status quo, the changes requested of Verdi were increasingly extensive, and it never realized its intended premiere in Naples. Ultimately it was performed in Rome in 1859.
Today, however, recent history is a standard subject for opera composers and few people question its appropriateness. John Adams, for instance, has made significant contributions to the operatic canon with his works Nixon in China, the title of which reveals the subject, and Dr. Atomic, which concerns the Manhattan Project. And, if you have been following recent news in the classical music world, you may have noticed the slew of works premiered or recently programmed on the subject of the Holocaust.
The work that perhaps garnered the most attention was Stefan Heucke’s Das Frauenorchester von Auschwitz, which premiered in Germany in September of 2006. The opera tells the story of this Jewish women’s orchestra, composed of concentration camp inmates, forced to play for the benefit of their captors. Several days ago, another work directly related to the Holocaust, Viktor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, was programmed at the Houston Grand Opera. This work, while not directly on the subject of the Holocaust, was written by the composer while he was imprisoned in Theresienstadt, and is a loose allegory for Ullman’s contemporary world. The composer ultimately was deported to and died in Auschwitz. And, in just a few days, the University of California at Santa Barbara will present a concert version of Udo Zimmerman’s White Rose, which tells the story of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi resistance group. It was written in East Germany in 1967, but it was several decades before it was performed in the West.
These are by no means the only operas based on the Holocaust. Another example is the opera based on William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice. With Styron’s death several days ago, this work has also received frequent mention in the press. The opera by Nicholas Maw premiered in 2002 and details the life of a woman, albeit fictional, who survived Auschwitz and finds herself in a tragically dysfunctional relationship.
But, just as in Verdi’s time, the use of recent historical subjects does raise questions, particularly when the events concern an especially painful and tragic event. Let us consider the question of when is it permissible to approach an historic event and to exploit the material for artistic purposes. Perhaps “permissible,” however, is too loaded a word. Artists should naturally be allowed access to all topics.
That being said, it is nonetheless a reality that when recent events are the subjects of artistic exploration, the final product will necessarily affect living people. In the case of White Rose, for instance, the opera is based on historical writings that have been shown to be commendable but flawed in their accuracy, and unfortunately omit the contributions of most of its members. And, to deviate briefly from the world of opera, take for example the films on 9-11 (World Trade Center and United 93). For many Americans this event is simply too fresh a wound and it is too soon to be able to understand its long-term ramifications and even our own feelings about it.
The Holocaust, to be fair, is now sixty years past. Fewer and fewer survivors from that era are here to tell their stories and it seems that now, large-scale works on the tales from that time are both appropriate and necessary, lest we forget the lessons of the past.
Opera is by its nature a grand spectacle and is perhaps well suited to the exploration of profound tragedy. In conversation with my husband, however, he made the point that often such spectacles are necessarily reductive: complex stories become polarized. And this aspect of spectacle is perhaps the most daunting part of writing an opera on a recent historical subject. Is opera a form that is suited to portray what Hannah Arendt has so famously called the “banality of evil?” Is our understanding of history diminished when its tales may be made to seem somehow distant from our everyday experiences?
So what is the point of these questions? Certainly it is not to condemn the works I mentioned earlier in this essay. In all fairness I have not been able to see them for myself. What’s more, I strongly believe in an artist’s right to examine world events and to offer a particular and hopefully unique view of them, even at the expense of historical accuracy in some cases. However, when reality is tapped for subject material it is also important to evaluate the way it may shape our own perceptions of history.
