The Knot Garden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Knot Garden is an opera in three acts by Michael Tippett to an original English libretto by the composer. The work had its first performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on December 2, 1970 conducted by Sir Colin Davis and produced by Sir Peter Hall. There is a recording with the original cast. The first American performance was in 1974 at Northwestern University, and the first German performance in Gelsenkirchen in 1987. There was a revival at Covent Garden in 1988, directed by Nicholas Hytner.
In 1984 Tippett created a reduced orchestration for a revival with the London Sinfonietta at the Wilde Theatre. The reduced version has been revived six times, with productions in Britain, America, Australia, and Austria. The Knot Garden was Tippett's third opera.
Contents |
[edit] Roles
|
|
|
[edit] Analysis
The opera is through composed. As a preface to the published score, the composer added the following note:
- "The scene, whether labyrinth or rose garden, changes with the inner situations. If the garden were ever finally visible, it might be a high-walled house-garden shutting out an industrial city. The labyrinth, on the other hand can never be actual. It appears, if at all, as a maze which continually shifts and possibly (in Act II) spins."
- "Time is the present. Although the duration is obviously within one day, from getting up to bedtime, the dramatic action is discontinuous, more like the cutting of a film. The term used for these cuts is Dissolve, implying some deliberate break-up and re-formation of the stage picture."
Each of these "Dissolves" is represented musically by ten bars of loud allegro molto fading into a soft timpani roll and horn call. This music is identical each time it appears in the first two acts, but is varied in Act III.
The composer's original programme note further explored the metaphor of the garden itself:
- "Knot gardens were intricate, formal patterns, made usually of tiny box hedges in Elizabethan gardens. In reality, such a garden was very small in scale, but the characters of the opera find that at times of crisis, the delicate love knot grows to become a threatening maze in which they cannot find each other. And when they do, their hates and loves are more naked and violent."
The opera is influenced thematically by Shakespeare's The Tempest. In Act II, the psychiatrist Mangus acts as "Prospero," assigning roles to the other characters and stage-managing a series of confrontations between them. However, the opera takes its epigraph from another Shakepeare play, as Tippett wrote: "Parolles' defiant realism in All's Well That Ends Well, 'simply the thing I am shall make me live," is the motto of the whole work."
The character of Dov - a gay musician whom Tippett acknowledged as in part a self-portrait - inspired the further song-cycle Songs for Dov, for tenor and chamber orchestra. Dov's music was also influenced by an earlier song-cycle, Songs for Ariel, which Tippet wrote in 1962.
[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Act I
The psychiatrist Mangus introduces the action. Thea enters, soon followed by the hysterical girl Flora, who rushes screaming into Thea's arms. Faber enters, and Thea sends Flora off with Mangus, then scolds Faber for (as she imagines) playing the lecher with Flora. Faber protests "I do not flirt with Flora; Flora screams before I...impossible!"
Mel and Dov enter dressed up as Ariel and Caliban from The Tempest. They are lovers, but Mel flirts with Thea, and out of jealousy Dov makes a play for Faber. This tense foursome is disrupted when Flora again rushes in screaming: Thea's sister Denise has arrived for a visit, and she is disfigured by torture. Denise introduces herself in a dramatic aria about her struggle for universal justice. This becomes an ensemble, and the act closes on Mel's soft rejoinder, "Sure, baby."
[edit] Act II
The second act is a dreamlike series of dialogues. In the score, the composer described his vision of the staging: "It appears as if the centre of the stage had the power to 'suck in' a character at the back of the stage, say, and 'eject' him at the front. During their passage through the maze, characters meet and play out their scenes. But always one of the characters in these scenes is about to be ejected while a fresh character has been sucked in and is whirled to the meeting point."
The first pair to appear are Thea and Denise, who speak in parallel, unable to meet. Thea is replaced by Faber, who does make some contact with the touchy Denise, but she is then replaced by Flora, who again reacts to Faber with screams. She is whirled offstage and Denise reappears with a horsewhip, followed by Dov, who continues his earlier flirtation. Faber is responsive, but is spun offstage and replaced by Mel, and the lovers share a duet acknowledging that their affair is ending. Dov now disappears to be replaced by Denise, who sees Mel as representing the oppressed of the earth (the tune to "We Shall Overcome" appears in the orchestra). Characters appear and disappear in quick succession until the sequence ends with Flora alone with Dov.
Dov comforts Flora by encouraging her to sing, and she performs "Die Liebe Farbe" from Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Dov responds with the song that would later form the first part of the Songs for Dov cycle. The act ends on Mel's re-entry.
[edit] Act III
Mangus declares that his production of The Tempest has begun: "This garden is now an island," and the characters obligingly play out the roles Mangus assigns them. In addition to Mel and Dov as Caliban and Ariel, Faber becomes Ferdinand, Flora becomes Miranda, and Mangus is Prospero. Thea and Denise remain themselves and comment on the action, critical of Mangus's controlling and voyeuristic role as impresario of the drama. At the conclusion of the charade Mel and Denise leave together, followed by Dov, who is not yet able to let go. Flora goes off alone. Thea and Faber are reconciled.
