Blackness in Opera

Naomi Andre,Karen M. Bryan,Eric Saylor

• Éditeur: University of Illinois Press
• Année: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780252093890
• Sujet: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Sous-sujet: Musik

Blackness in Opera critically examines the intersections of race and music in the multifaceted genre of opera. A diverse cross-section of scholars places well-known operas ( Porgy and Bess, Aida, Treemonisha ) alongside lesser-known works such as Frederick Delius's Koanga, William Grant Still's Blue Steel, and Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga! to reveal a new historical context for re-imagining race and blackness in opera. The volume brings a wide-ranging, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary approach to questions about how blackness has been represented in these operas, issues surrounding characterization of blacks, interpretation of racialized roles by blacks and whites, controversies over race in the theatre and the use of blackface, and extensions of blackness along the spectrum from grand opera to musical theatre and film. In addition to essays by scholars, the book also features reflections by renowned American tenor George Shirley. Contributors are Naomi André, Melinda Boyd, Gwynne Kuhner Brown, Karen M. Bryan, Melissa J. de Graaf, Christopher R. Gauthier, Jennifer McFarlane-Harris, Gayle Murchison, Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Eric Saylor, Sarah Schmalenberger, Ann Sears, George Shirley, and Jonathan O. Wipplinger.

1

From Otello to Porgy

Blackness, Masculinity, and Morality in Opera

NAOMI ANDRÉ

One of the most reliably predictable figures in the grand opera tradition is the male protagonist: the heroic tenor. Regardless of whether the final curtain finds him dying for his beliefs or saving the heroine from a fate worse than death, the lead tenor has traditionally set the standard for heroism and positive masculine behavior throughout an opera.¹ But around the beginning of the twentieth century, the codes for representing masculinity in opera began to change. Puccini's Tosca (1900) provides an apt example of this transformation, in which the lead tenor is never put in the typical masculine position of having to rescue the heroine. In fact, the opposite is true: Tosca spends most of the opera trying to save her lover (and lead tenor), Cavaradossi, and is ultimately unsuccessful. Moreover, the most dynamic male character is the villainous Scarpia, who tries to sexually conquer Tosca and assassinate Cavaradossi. This is not a new position for the bass or baritone antagonist, long distinguished as the unsuccessful suitor of the soprano and perpetrator of evil deeds. What is striking is that his actions are not balanced by the presence of an equally effective and noble male protagonist.

Concurrent with this transformation of character treatment was an increase in operas featuring nonwhite or non-European characters. The theme of exoticism was by that time a regular feature in opera and brought with it an added dynamic for representing the Other.² In this essay, I focus on how the changing codes of masculinity in leading male roles are calibrated differently for white European characters and nonwhite characters with non-European ancestry (for example, African American, Caribbean, Moorish, or African) and show how masculinity and heroism are brought together differently for black and nonblack characters.

In order to provide both a close reading of a specific musical moment and a larger overview of broader trends about the representation of blackness in opera, I have divided this essay into two sections. The first examines Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887) and focuses on a critical moment near the end of the opera that links orchestral developments in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century with the way Verdi dramatizes Otello's vicious murder of Desdemona. The broader overview considers four operas written in the first half of the twentieth century: Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925), Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1927), George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935), and Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (1945). Two of these operas (Wozzeck and Peter Grimes) feature white European title characters, while the other two feature African American protagonists.³

The “Chocolate” Project

Though English literature has examined race and themes of darkness in Shakespeare's Othello, practically no attention has been given to the theme of blackness in the musical settings of Othello.⁴ Even more striking by today's standards, several times in the correspondence between Verdi and those who were involved in the creation of Otello are references to getting the “chocolate” ready;⁵ Giulio Ricordi even sent Verdi a holiday panettone (a traditional Milanese cake) around Christmas in 1881 and 1882, each topped with an unfinished figure of Otello in chocolate—not-so-subtle indications that he was looking forward to Verdi's completed opera.⁶ Today, it is easy to look at this situation and think of it less as a deliberate racial slur and more like a convenience of shorthand. Referring to Otello as the “chocolate project” could easily have been a casual way to talk about the possibility of composing another opera without seeming to commit Verdi to another major work. After all, Verdi, now on the cusp of his seventies, was content to retire after Aida in 1871and live the life of the gentleman farmer.

There are also other frameworks that surround these comments as they are contextualized in the nineteenth century. Chocolate was introduced to Europe from the New World of Central and South Americas in the sixteenth century.⁷ On its own, the cocoa bean is quite bitter; while hot peppers, ginger, and other additives for cacao were sometimes used in the Americas, the need for additional sweeteners or spices became a standard requirement for the European palate. The reputation of chocolate was that it carried various powers that ranged from its being used as a therapeutic medicine, a place to hide poisons, or an aphrodisiac. Hence, this edible substance produced several different meanings. Originating from a foreign, exotic place (associated with the Mayans, Aztecs, and other Indian tribes), it was a food that could produce curative, dangerous, or erotic effects. Yet in order to be enjoyed, it needed to be tamed in taste by adding something to make it palatable.

Another related arena may be found in a whole collection of aphorisms born out of the craft of making chocolate that circulated in nineteenth-century French culture. As an avid traveler to France and someone who kept up with French culture, Verdi quite probably had knowledge of chocolate's various connotations. In a particularly poignant connection to Shakespeare's Othello, the following saying has an apt relevance: “To be like chocolate (être chocolat) was to be deceived or play the fool. As a substance surrounded by ambiguous moral and medical notions, chocolate evoked persistent anxieties in its early consumers.” In another application to having an especially vulnerable nature subject to outside influences, “to act like chocolate (faire le chocolat) meant to be naïve or gullible and to court numerous social risks, from deception to death.” Quite directly, relevant to a character such as Othello/Otello, “The noun chocolat has long signaled not only a tropical foodstuff but also men of African descent.”⁸ These expressions associate chocolate with things that extended beyond food, charging the word with a deeper resonance than we might expect today.

A final association of chocolate in the nineteenth century and Verdi's opera may be seen in imperial development. Though Italy's most well-known expansionist ventures in the twentieth century were under Mussolini, current scholarship traces colonialist energies as far back as the mid-nineteenth century. Patrizia Palumbo, a noted Italian historian, writes, “The nationalistic belief in Italy's civilizing mission that informed much of the later colonial discourse is deeply embedded in the Risorgimento.” Verdi was aware of at least some of these activities when he refers to Italy's failed attempt against the French to appropriate Tunisia in 1881 in a letter to his friend Oppradino Arrivabene. Modern historians view an escalation in the more formal Italian attempts to act on their interests a few years later, in 1885, when “the Italian government initiated its colonial campaigns in Africa.”⁹ Such activities occurred two years before the premiere of Otello and during the time in which Verdi was most active in composing it. Behind the seemingly innocent use of “making chocolate” and the “chocolate project” are the deeper contexts in which Verdi lived. Moreover, the act of eating chocolate could be seen as a metaphor for the colonization process itself—transforming something bitter and exotic into a safe, desirable product for ravenous consumers.

Staging Otello's Base Deed

One of the chief figures behind nineteenth-century Italian conceptions of Shakespeare was August Wilhelm Schlegel. Schlegel's influential Viennese lectures, Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, first appeared in Italian translation in 1817, shortly after their original presentation.¹⁰ They were so popular that most Italian translations of Shakespeare in Verdi's lifetime included Schlegel's remarks. Verdi and Boito owned copies of such translations and would have had ample opportunity and motivation to familiarize themselves with Schlegel's ideas about the character of Othello himself. Schlegel described the Moorish general as

covered with dark shadows…. One may see in Othello the savage nature of that burning zone which produces the most ferocious animals and the most poisonous plants…. One drop of this poison put into his blood gives rise to the most fearful effervescence. Othello shows himself to be noble, sincere, full of trust, fully aware of the love that he inspires; he is a hero who scorns danger, the worthy head of his soldiers, the solid supporter of the State. But the purely physical power of his passions demolishes his adopted virtues with one blow, and the savage supplants in him the civilized man…. He suffers double; he suffers in both of the spheres into which his existence is divided.¹¹

By contrast, Verdi and Boito's Otello is no “savage” noble doomed to reveal his ferocious elemental nature. Rather than distinguish Otello by an exotic Saracen or Turkish outfit (as was suggested by Alfredo Edel, the costume designer at La Scala), Verdi wanted Otello to be dressed throughout as a Venetian nobleman.¹² However, there were other geographical and musical ways that Otello is marked with difference, highlighting the dual nature of his existence.

Unlike Shakespeare's Othello, which opens in Venice, Verdi's opera is entirely set in Cyprus—an exoticized locale outside mainland Europe. Both Venice and Cyprus have historically been “in between” sites where the West meets the East (in terms of economic trade and cross-cultural exchange). The exoticization of Otello is heightened by taking the action entirely off the European continent and placing it in Cyprus, an island that has connections both to Greece (with its European alliances) as well as to Turkey (considered part of Southwest Asia), and part of the Ottoman Empire.¹³ Cyprus starts out as the localized norm where Otello is unquestionably in charge. From his opening “Esultate!” as he steps off the ship (victorious from his battle overseas with the Turks), to the quelling of the rowdy argument (instigated by Iago) between Cassio and Montano later in the act, to the intimate love duet at the end of act 1, Otello is shown to be a well-rounded and capable hero: a victor in battle, an effective military leader, and a tender lover to his wife. Moreover, his triumphant entrance into the opera signals his distance from the combative Other:

Esultate! L'orgoglio musulmano
Sepolto è in mar, nostra e del ciel è gloria!
Dopo l'armi lo vines l'uragano.

Exult! Muslim pride
is buried in the sea. The glory is ours and heaven's!
After our arms conquered them, so did the storm.

In act 1, Verdi's Otello is carefully drawn to be considered one of “us” rather than the aggressive Muslim Turks he has just defeated.

Musically, the dramatic moment that epitomizes the clash between Otello's love for Desdemona and the murderous rage he later feels for her at the end of the opera has been noted in the recurrence of the bacio (kiss) theme from their love duet in act 1 during the final moments of the opera.¹⁴ In this recurrence, Otello's passionate love and unjustified jealousy are poignantly recalled when he looks at the murdered Desdemona as he lies dying. The return of the bacio theme from the climax of their duet reminds the audience of how far the two have fallen from the celestial joy they had once shared. Yet there exists another sonic signal augmenting the characterization of Otello at the end of the opera; rather than recalling the nobility of his love for Desdemona, however, this other musical gesture speaks to Otello's darker, baser instincts.

Musically, Otello is given a special aural cue when he enters Desdemona's bedroom in the fourth act to kill her. The directions for his entrance are noted in the disposizione scenica (production book) Giulio Ricordi wrote for the first production:

As soon as Desdemona is asleep, and precisely on the first note of the solo of the double-basses, the secret door opens rapidly, and Otello appears at the threshold. He takes a small step forwards, then stands still, while he immediately closes the secret door behind him. He holds a scimitar in his right hand.

The actor must memorize the solo of the double-basses well since all of the action must take place exactly as indicated by the composer on specific beats. Especially at the initial performances, it would be helpful if the same person who has prompted the “Ave Maria” were behind the closed secret door, where, with the score in hand, he could indicate to the actor sotto voce exactly which movements to make. For our part, we will indicate these movements briefly, since it is up to the actor alone, in such a highly dramatic moment, to integrate these movements into an effective scenic action. He should not forget that Desdemona is asleep and must not be awakened by any inopportune noise.¹⁵

A note on the development of the double bass is instructive here. Beginning in 1832, the Paris Conservatory used a four-string double bass tuned in fourths (E, A, d, g) that mirrors the tuning of the modern double bass. However, Italian performers were slower to make this change.¹⁶ Following in the footsteps of the great Italian double bass virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti (1763–1846), for most of the nineteenth century, Italian tuning was for a three-string double bass in fourths (A, d, g). Verdi attended operas regularly in Paris from the mid-1840s through the 1860s and sporadically thereafter. During this time, he had plenty of opportunities to hear the French four-string double bass in the orchestra and wrote for them in his two operas for the Paris Opéra (Les Vêpres siciliennes of 1855 and Don Carlos of 1867). The four-string basses were hardly found in Italian orchestras until the Milan Congress of 1881, but even within the La Scala orchestra, then considered the most progressive orchestra in Italy, the switch was neither instantaneous nor consistent, resulting in a period during which bass sections comprised both four- and three-string instruments.¹⁷

In the score of Otello, Verdi indicates that he only wanted the four-stringed double basses (“i soli contrabassi a quattro corde”) to play their open E string during Otello's entrance, with no octave doublings from above on the three-string basses. It is on this note, one of the lowest possible in the orchestra, that Otello enters from the secret door.¹⁸ The note is marked pianissimo, and the double basses play with mutes, so it is barely audible. Anticipating this situation, Verdi has prepared the audience: Desdemona has just sung the “Willow Song” and her prayers (“Ave Maria”). The upper strings (violins and violas) play in their higher regi...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword: Singing in the Dark
• Preface
• Introduction: Representing Blackness on the Operatic Stage
• 1. From Otello to Porgy: Blackness, Masculinity, and Morality in Opera
• 2. Hearing the Other in α e Masque of Blackness
• 3. Nationalism, Racial Difference, and “Egyptian” Meaning in Verdi's Aida
• 4. Race, “Realism,” and Fate in Frederick Delius's Koanga
• 5. Political Currents and Black Culture in Scott Joplin's Treemonisha
• 6. Clarence Cameron White's Ouanga! in the World of the Harlem Renaissance
• 7. New Paradigms in William Grant Still's Blue Steel
• 8. Performers in Catfish Row: Porgy and Bess as Collaboration
• 9. Searching for “Authenticity” in Paul Bowles's Denmark Vesey
• 10. The Politics of Color in Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones
• 11. Performing Race in Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf
• 12. Il Rodolfo Nero, or the Masque of Blackness
• Contributors
• Index