The operas of Bohuslav Martinů are multi-faceted and colourful. The Czech composer didn’t follow any particular style, but neither did he disown his background. Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich gives an overview of Martinů’s impressive theatre works.

Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959), the fourth “classical composer” of Czech music, developed his own unique profile as an opera composer. Whereas Smetana acted as a national-cultural “founding father” in his stage works and went beyond the repertoire of typical Czech themes, and Janáček, far greater than merely a regional figure developed into one of the greatest modern myth makers, in its colourfulness Martinů‘s operatic output related somewhat to the works of the second great Czech national composer Antonín Dvořák. With him too, opera was only part of his output; Dvořák’s rich musical-theatrical endeavours, despite the later international success of Rusalka, are distinctly in the shadow of his symphonic and chamber music works.

Martinů was prolific in many musical genres; for him opera represented just one of several equally important major interests. In contrast to Dvořák, who was rather unadvised in literary matters and often worked with undistinguished or dismal libretti, Martinů had a cosmopolitan education and a wide inquisitiveness about aesthetics, even a thirst for adventure. He left his native country at an early age and moved to Paris, where he became a pupil of the leading neo-classical composer Albert Roussel. From a free decision to leave home, a permanent separation from his native country soon developed as it was occupied by the National Socialists and subsequently was forced to adopt socialism of another kind. The particular fascination of Martinů’s music includes being constantly characterised by this pain of separation. Martinů never became just an arbitrary artistic cosmopolitan, only comfortable as it were in his art; his Czech roots were always recognizable as a musical “wound”. For those with sharp ears, even such a “French” work as the opera Julietta is characterised by the musical symbol of the “Moravian cadence”, a traditional musical device which also occurs in Janáček (Taras Bulba), and which is almost omnipresent in Martinů, conjuring up the imaginary presence of the distant native land.

Martinů is probably the only composer who wrote operas in four languages. His first work The soldier and the dancer (Voják a Tanečnice) was composed in 1928, based on a classical comedy by Plautus in Czech. More important were the 1930s works The miracles of Mary (Hry o Marii), an attempt at a cosmopolitan idealistic-folkloristic miracle play. Each of these is a self-contained work, but they are precisely related to each other, based on quite different texts and each with a particular musical atmosphere. The first two pieces come from western European textual sources and were composed in French: The Wise and Foolish Virgins (Panny moudré a panny pošetilé) in an archaic-ceremonial style with alternating choral and solo numbers; Mary of Nijmegen (Mariken z Nimègue), a Flemish miracle play with a stylised funfair feel.  However, the occasionally grotesque colours of the full score leave no doubt about the semi-sacred orientation of this miracle play which transforms the popular model into something intricately-structured. In the second half the tetralogy also begins with a static piece before a really dramatic one, and this time the subject matter is drawn from Czech sources. In the gently-coloured pastorale The Nativity of Our Lord (Narozeni Páně) Martinů revels, as a successor to Bach, Liszt and Berlioz, in the most beautiful Christmas and pastoral topoi. The saintly legend of Sister Pasqualine (Sestra Paskalina) is turbulent, with all sorts of devilish temptation and threats of burning at the stake. The overall conception of this artistic quadruple opera displays an aesthetic which diverges from both Wagnerianism and verismo and connects with modern dramaturgical achievements such as the opera-oratorios of Honneger and Stravinsky.

Martinů wrote no fewer than 14 operas including several musical comedies such as Alexandre bis  in French (performed in the German version Zweimal Alexander in 1964 in Mannheim) and Mirandolina (after Goldoni) in Italian. In his cheerful operas it is the virtuoso element which triumphs first and foremost. Here, of course, Martinů mastered the art of vocal ensemble bel canto in particular. With the instruments of neo-classicism and a finely chiselled, psychologically deepened characterization of roles, he conjures up modern forms of the traditional commedia dell’arte. Similarly inspired by the Italian (but to a French text) is the late one-acter Ariane, probably inspired by Maria Callas’s dramatic skills. This updates the complex of motifs around Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaurus, and towards the end evokes Monteverdi’s music of lament for the abandoned Ariadne. The Greek Passion, composed in English after the novel Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazantzakis, takes us into a quite different realistic-humanitarian grounded world.

A high point in Martinů’s operatic output is Julietta, probably the most important musico-dramatic creation of surrealism of all. Georges Neveux’s subject has almost magical-poetic qualities. Michel, a young man, returns after many years to a small French town searching for a love song which had been sung earlier by a woman seen fleetingly at a window. Now he discovers that the inhabitants of the town have all lost their memories and only live in the present. Michel falls into bizarre and despairing turmoil. The piece is rich in episodes and picturesque minor roles such as the Seller of Memories and the accordion player. The music is as “pluralistic” as that in The miracles of Mary. Analogous to the surrealist concept, each representation disturbs through an iridescent tonality, held in suspense or multi-dimensional. Julietta established itself in the international repertoire as the most popular of all Martinů‘s operas before the Greek Passion. 

Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich

(from [t]akte 2/2014)

(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)