Vavel or Havel. An Argument against Modernizing the Libretto of Vanda

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1 18 Alan Houtchens Vavel or Havel. An Argument against Modernizing the Libretto of Vanda Alan Houtchens (Texas A & M University, U.S.A.) Aesthetic, artistic, and practical issues concerning the alteration of opera libretti in order to update them in accordance with contemporary standards of linguistic usage, grammar, and spelling are as thorny as are the issues surrounding the singing of opera in translation. For me, the issues are purely academic, as I am firmly convinced that operas should be sung in their original languages using their original texts, if for no other reason than because, in my experience, no singer exists whose diction is so articulate, or an opera house where the acoustics are so perfect, as to allow for the words to be understood anyhow. There are compelling reasons, however, for altering the text of an opera, and Iwould like to consider some of them by focusing on one particular opera, Antonín Dvořák s Vanda. In the case of nineteenth-century grand opera, to which genre Vanda essentially belongs, the characters, their motivations, and the plot itself may no longer suit the taste of twenty-first century viewers. At the time Dvořák was composing Vanda, during the year 1875, a critic writing in Dalibor ranked the libretto among the most successful, especially as concerns plot development. 1 Yet already in the early part of this century, the majority of writers expressed a different opinion, even while one of the authors of the libretto (albeit the one who probably was least involved in its fashioning), Václav Beneš-Šumavský, was still alive. 2 For example, Josef Bartovský, who had become thoroughly familiar with the opera in the course of preparing a new piano-vocal score for the 1925 production in Plzeň, wrote that the plot progresses in an absurdly heavy-handed manner, and he described the text as muddled, vacuous, non-czech, stumbling along in the attempt to make rhymes and assonances at all costs. 3 During most of this century, Otakar Šourek has been the arbiter of opinion. Invariably labeling the libretto slabé (weak, poor), he has argued at various times that it is too long, badly constructed, unserviceable, confusing, illogical, and burdened with too many superfluous incidents, a wearisomely protracted dénouement, and an implausible ending; also that it is overly sentimental, naive, stylistically uneven, dry, colorless, and unmusical. 4 While other authors have simply reiterated Šourek s pronouncements, Václav Císař has defended the libretto, pointing out that many Czech operas with much worse libretti have gained considerable popularity and have been performed much more often than Vanda. 5 His argument can be extended to include works in other 1 Zprávy z Prahy a z venkova. Nové skladby, Dalibor 3, no. 44 (30 October 1875): Beneš-Šumavský died in 1934 at the age of K tomu konfusní tekst V. B. Šumavského, prázdný, nečeský, klopýtající v úsilí o rým i assonanci za každou cenu, tekst jen verbální, nikoli však obsahový. Josef Bartovský, Besedy. Cyklus oper Dvořákových: Vanda, Nová doba 31, no. 172 (23 June 1925): 2. 4 Šourek s most extensive discussion of Vanda may be found in Život a dílo Antonína Dvořáka I, 3 rd rev. ed. (Prague: Hudební matice Umělecké besedy, 1954), Another important and widely-read source is his Antonín Dvořák, 3 rd ed. (Prague: Hudební matice Umělecké besedy, 1947), , which is Academia, Praha 2000 Hudební věda 2000, ročník XXXVII, číslo 1 2

2 Vavel or Havel 19 languages. As literature, Francesco Maria Piave s Simon Boccanegra is unbelievably awful, yet Verdi s opera which furthermore is not one of his best scores has managed to stay in vogue. Scribe s conventional, artificial, colorless, stilted, and overly melodramatic prosody has not diminished the impact made on opera enthusiasts for over a century and a half by La somnambule, La muette de Portici, La juive, Les Huguenots, La favorite, or Les ve^pres siciliennes. Furthermore, the motivations of the characters and complications of plot in Vanda are no more involved, naive, melodramatic, fanciful, or ridiculous than what one finds in these and many other nineteenth-century operas. At least there are no extraneous, distracting subplots such as might involve a second pair of lovers, for instance, or a scheming servant. The romantic notion of redemption through self-sacrifice that is idealized in Vanda likewise justifies the actions of dozens of other heroines who jump to their deaths off bridges, balconies, or precipices usually into a river or the sea, in the case of Mascagni s Iris, into the sewer. 6 The chauvinistic attitude that colors much of Vanda concerning the incapacity of women to rule a nation or even to hold political office ought to lead feminist thinkers in the 1990s to demand revisionist changes in the libretto other than, that is, simply replacing dívka with žena, which is more acceptable today (please refer to Example 1). The irony is, however, that by the end of the opera Vanda proves herself capable of protecting the nation at least as well, and perhaps more fully than, any male ruler, and through a greater trial and sacrifice. If we are allowed to doctor up the libretto to avoid offending modern feminist sensibilities, we should also be able to make changes reflecting contemporary political events or conditions or for the purpose of adding local color. As a matter of fact, the computer specialists here in Prague who have recently printed my own and Dr. Jaroslav Holeček s practical performance edition of the opera took it upon themselves to make just such a change. As Vanda and her Polish forces finally gain victory over a marauding Germanic tribe, the crowd shouts their approval by invoking the name Wawel (Vavel), the home or pantheon of their pagan gods (the equivalent of their enemy s Valhalla): Hoj, Vavel zvítězil! (Hurrah, Wawel has gained the victory!). But as a joke and to challenge our proofreading abilities, the printers wrote, Hoj, Havel zvítězil! (see Example 2). known as malý Dvořák (the little Dvořák) and was translated into English in an abbreviated form as Antonín Dvořák: His Life and Works (Prague: Orbis, 1952), where the corresponding description of Vanda appears on pp See also Zapomenutá opera Dvořákova, Venkov 20, no. 145 (21 June 1925): 3 4; Dvořákovy opery, Národni a Stavovské divadlo 6, no. 37 (3 May 1929): 7 8; Z hudebního života. Oslavy Dvořákovy. Cyklus oper I: Vanda, Venkov 24, no. 107 (7 May 1929): 7; Vanda, in české umění dramatické: Zpěvohra, ed. Josef Hutter and Zdeněk Chalabala (Prague: Šolc a Šimáček, 1941), 105 6; and, finally, Otakar Šourek and Paul Stefan, Dvořák: Leben und Werk (Vienna: Verlag Dr. Rolf Passer, 1934), 56 57, which serves as the basis for Stefan s Antonín Dvořák, Eng. trans. Y. W. Vance (New York: The Greystone Press, 1941), cís. [Václav Císař], Divadlo, umění a literatura. Dvořákův cyklus: Vanda, Český deník 14, no. 170 (21 June 1925): 8. 6 Other such operatic heroines include Senta, Fenella (La muette de Portici), Pacini s and Gounod s - Sapho, Mascagni s Iris, Margared in Le roi d Ys, Káťa Kabanová, Moniuszko s Halka, Foerster s Eva, Katerina Izmaylova, Wolf-Ferarri s Maliella, Tchaikovsky s Lisa, and Tosca.

3 20 Alan Houtchens No matter what František Zákrejs and Václav Beneš-Šumavský s artistic aims may have been in writing the libretto of Vanda whether to edify their audience or merely to entertain them, to recreate the dim past of a Slavic peoples or to create a visionary future, to revitalize ancient legend or to depict contemporary social and political conditions through allegory they certainly never intended for us to gauge their verse against works of great literature. Yet critics of their libretto the harshest being, quite naturally, Czech are quick to point out that it contains innumerable antiquated spellings, outmoded grammatical constructions, and absurdly precious turns of phrase. Some of these are listed in the left-hand column of the table of examples. To modern ears, the word velkokněz sounds stilted and quaintly outdated, but changing it to velekněz dissipates precisely that atmosphere of antique pagan times and non-christian patriarchal religious orders that the librettists and Dvořák wished to evoke (Example 3). Božena Němcová, Jan Neruda, and others consistently employed this older form for the same purpose. Similarly, many other words, phrases, and constructions found in Vanda have now been reserved specifically for poetic usage: štěstí je zřít, for instance (Example 4), or necht and the verb pět (Examples 5 and 6), or constructing the conditional by using -li (Ex. 7). Some spellings have been superceded in accordance with changes in pronunciation or the appropriation of colloquialisms: s instead of z, for instance, or zejtra instead of zítra, and všickni instead of všichni (Examples 8, 9, and 10). Still, I would argue that such archaisms add to, rather than detract from, the circumstances of the plot, and provide a dimension that Dvořák, himself, clearly would have appreciated, in so far as he occasionally used specific musical devices and rhetorical gestures expressly for the purpose of giving the music of Vanda an antique, medieval, or folklike flavor (for example, modal melodies and harmonic inflections, parallelisms, wind parts scored in thirds, and open spacings). Admittedly, some portions of the libretto are now so outdated that they sound almost silly. The irregular conjugation tresceš of the verb trestat (itself overly bookish) makes us grin. The lines in the first column of Example 11 might be translated into English as Why, Queen, hast thou not punished such treachery at once by this traitor s death?, where today the sentence would read, Why, Queen, don t you punish such treachery at once by killing this traitor? Similarly, the interjection Nikoliv! (Nay!) sounds almost Biblical in comparison with Nikoli! (No!, Example 12). It is worth recalling that the Czech language, especially literary Czech, has undergone a tremendous transformation relatively recently and within a relative short span of time, only since the early nineteenth century, beginning with the appearance of Josef Dobrovský s Czech grammar (1809, 1819; written in German, it should be noted), František Palacký and Pavel Josef Šafařík s Počátkové českého básnictví (The beginnings of Czech poetry, 1819), Josef Jungman s five-volume Slovník jazyka českého ( ), and the founding of Matice česká (1830). Every language has undergone a similar transformation, if perhaps not quite so rapidly. Shakespeare, for example, had his actors say he hath. Yet it would be blasphemous to suggest that, in modern stagings of his plays, we should change every occurrence of he hath to he has. By the same argument, nobody anywhere in the world thinks that it is necessary to update the spelling or grammatical

4 Vavel or Havel 21 syntax of John Dowland s My Bonnie Lass, She Smileth, or any other early seventeenth-century English madrigal, just because today the language seems antiquated. When twentieth-century composers have set to music words drawn from the plays of Shakespeare (Benjamin Britten, for example), they have not felt compelled to update the language and why should they, since the greatness of Shakespeare lies precisely in his specific use of language. It is true that, in terms of poetic imagery and use of language, Zákrejs and Beneš-Šumavský s libretto of Vanda is not exactly on the level of a Shakespearean play, but, in my opinion, the original libretto should nevertheless be faithfully respected. Changes appearing in the piano-vocal score and in the manuscript full score that were made for the productions of the opera in 1925 at Plzeň and in 1929 at the National Theater in Prague presumably under the guidance of Josef Bartovský and Otakar Šourek should not be carried over into the critical edition of the opera. Admittedly, many of these changes were made in an effort to improve the declamation. Especially in his younger days, Dvořák was not always cognizant of the methods of proper declamation in the Czech language. Once, in a note written at the end of the autograph score of his song cycle Cypřiše, he even mentioned his own shortcomings in this regard. Still, Dvořák s setting of Zákrejs and Beneš-Šumavský s original words should be respected without alteration. Otherwise, why shouldn t we also change Dvořák s music to suit contemporary tastes and transform Vanda into a rock opera, as has been the case recently with Rusalka? Many of the revisions sanctioned for the few performances of truncated versions of Vanda that have taken place in this century actually have overlooked the fact that Dvořák paid very careful attention to the poetic qualities of the libretto. He may not have had any particular literary talent himself, but he obviously entertained specific, well-defined ideas concerning what constituted a workable libretto. He is reported to have once remarked: I am sorry that I am not a poet myself. If I could write poetry, I should write the text myself and, in between writing the verses, I should know how it would look in the score! 7 He was constantly looking over the shoulders of Bernard Guldener, Marie Červinková-Riegrová, Adolf Wenig, Jaroslav Kvapil, and Jaroslav Vrchlický as they were preparing libretti for him. He frequently asked them for extensive revisions and occasionally even made changes himself without their knowledge or consent. He was concerned not only about matters of a general nature, such as the dramatic viability of a particular scene or 7 Josef Michl, První přednáška u Antonína Dvořáka (Vzpomínka z roku 1901), Hudební revue 4, no. 8/9 (October 1911): 464, quoted in Otakar Šourek, ed., Antonín Dvořák: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Roberta Finlayson Samsour (Prague: Státní nakladatelství, 1954), 195. The underscoring presumably is Michl s. Ale kdopak mi napíše text? Máme sice pár znamenitých básníků, ale já vím, že by mi to žádný neznal napsat tak, jak bych si přál a jak bych to potřeboval. Vrchlickému jsem jednou řekl, že bych měl rád na konci veršů jednoslabičná, dlouhá slova a on mi řekl, že neví, kde jich nabrat! Kolikrát se tak nad tím zamyslím a j e m i l í to, ž e n e - jsem sám básníkem! Kdybych znal básnit, napsal bych si text sám a mezi psaním veršů bych už věděl, jak to bude vypadat v partituře!

5 22 Alan Houtchens the actual mechanics of presenting it on the stage, but also about the specific steps he might take to ensure a sensitive, effective musical setting. With regard to the libretto of Vanda, Dvořák would have appreciated the fact that the regular and systematic use of rhyme and other poetic devices like alliteration and assonance (which annoyed Bartovský so much) produces a rich and variegated wash of sound-color that contributes greatly to the dramatic effect of particular scenes. One especially impressive example comes immediately to mind (see Example 13). The dark, portentous, sinister mood of Homena s ode to the malevolent god Černobůh in the third act results largely from the numerical predominance and structural importance given to the dark, rounded vowels o, u, and ů. These vowels are articulated in high- and mid-back positions and, not coincidentally, suit the richer, heavier contralto voice particularly well. Assonance figures prominently in this aria: už and půlnoc; době and host; and rodí plod; also vražda and zrada. Alliteration is involved as well in zrada and zlost; pekelný and plod; and černému, čest, čas. The corresponding vowels of půlnoc and vůkol match, and půlnoc and noc are placed in close proximity, as are rod and rodí. All of these incessant repetitions are obviously calculated to give Homena s incantation a hypnotic quality. Why then, replace the first word, už, with již? Doing so not only makes a mockery of the librettists conception but also ignores Dvořák s sense of vocal color, just as replacing dívce with ženě in Example 1 destroys the assonance consciously built up there. What is more, contemporary linguistic practice is not an issue in this case: even today už is preferred over již. For a recording of parts of the opera made in 1951, recently reissued on compact disk, Ludmila Hanzalíková sings již in an otherwise splendid performance of the aria Už půlnoc nastává. 8 The result is not felicitous and only serves to confirm my premise that such alterations are, at the very least, unnecessary, or, in the worst cases like Havel for Vavel are merely ludicrous. 8 Antonín Dvořák, Vanda, soloists including Ludmila Hanzalíková (Homena), Drahomíra Tikalová (Vanda), Beno Blachut (Slavoj), and Karel Kalaš (High Priest), Prague Radio Orchestra and Chorus, cond. František Dyk, Supraphon compact disks SU (recorded in 1951).

6 Vavel or Havel 23 REPRESENTATIVE EXAMPLES OF CHANGES MADE DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY IN THE LIBRETTO OF VANDA Archaic Words, Constructions, Spellings and Outmoded and Poetic Usages Alterations Made by Bartovský, Šourek, and Others 1. dívka žena Act 1, scene 3 Však nyní šťastna již nemohu být, když veliký můj otec ve hrobě, když zůstavil mne, dívku, po sobě, že královskou mám dráhu nastoupit. Ach, kterak možno slabé dívce bdít, by v blahu zkvétal milovaný lid, by v moci, v lesku žerdi vlasti vlály, by dnové dávné slávy znovu vzpláli!? Ach, kterak možno slabé ženě bdít, Act 4, scene 3 Bohové, pomozte, vlast již hyne nám! Co já mohu slabá dívčina? Život můj je oběť jediná, kterouž mohu dáti vám! V této děsně slavné chvíli, ku konci když boj se chýlí, svatý slib já ukládám: Vítězstvím nás nebe obdaruj, Vanda za oběť dá život svůj! 2. Act 4, scene 4 Hoj, Vavel zvítězil! Hoj, Havel zvítězil! 3. velkokněz, -kněžka velekněz, -kněžka 4. štěstí je zřít Act 1, scene 1 Na zemi všude štěstí je zřít. 5. nechť nechať, ať

7 24 Alan Houtchens 6. pět zpívat 7. -li když or zdal Act 4, scene 2 Nebe-li nám nepřispěje, zle se bude díti nám. Když nebe nám nepřispěje, zle se bude díti nám. Act 3, scene 5 Pekelná kněžko, mne-li poznáváš? 8. s, se z, ze Act 1, scene 7 však bázeň možno zazlíti mně s těží ztěží, ztěžka 9. zejtra, zejtřek zítra, zítřek 10. všickni všichni 11. tresceš (trestat) trestáš Act 3, scene 6 Proč, královno, proč zradu takovou netresceš ihned smrtí zrádcovou? 12. Nikoliv! Nikoli! 13. Act 3, scene 2 Už půlnoc nastává a vůkol černá noc nad světem vyvstává svou všude šíří moc. Již půlnoc nastává V té době temný host přepadá lidský rod avražda, zrada, zlost pekelný rodí plod. Černému bohu čest - Již čas mu oběť nést!

8 Vavel or Havel 25 Address: Texas A & M University, Music Program, College Station, Texas , U.S.A., houtch@mail.startel.net Vavel nebo Havel. Polemika proti modernizaci libreta Vandy Alan Houtchens (Texas A & M University, U.S.A.) Spor o to, zda modernizovat operní libreta co do pravopisné normy, jazykového úzu i obsahu či nikoliv je stejně ostrý jako ten, zda zpívat opery v originálním jazyce či v překladu. Autor je zastáncem názoru, že veškeré úpravy nebo modernizace jsou spíše ke škodě věci a že tudíž původní jazyk a dikce mají být za všech okolností zachovány. Své tvrzení dokládá na několika příkladech z libreta Dvořákovy tragické opery Vanda, považovaného tradičně za velmi slabé a konfúzní. résumé Jarmila Gabrielová