What is Opera - Reference to Moses and Aron by Schoenberg - Essay Example

What is opera? (with reference to Moses and Aron by Schoenberg). The term “opera” derives from the Italian word for “work” and has come to mean a large scale and extravagant creation, or a work of art which involves music, high drama and expensive costumes, delivered in sumptuous surroundings to a well-educated and wealthy audience. Snowman defines it in passing as “an art form that aspires to combine all the others”1 and goes on to chart the history of opera as a pastime of the elite which started in the Renaissance, reached its peak in the nineteenth century and began to decline in the twentieth century. This paper looks at the nature and purpose of opera in the twentieth century with specific reference to the unfinished masterpiece Moses and Aron which was written by classical composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) between 1930 and 1932. In the mediaeval period most people encountered formal music principally in religious settings but after the great turbulence of the Reformation, there came a time of gradual extension of musical performance into the salons of high society. Wealthy patrons of the Renaissance commissioned music to be written for special occasions such as weddings and coronations. In France the ballet form emerged, and in Italy genres such as the pastorale became popular: “The attraction of the pastorale consisted therefore, not in the plot but in the scenes and moods, the sensuous charm of the language, and the delicately voluptuous imagery, at which the Italian Renaissance poets excelled.”2 Aspects of theatrical and musical technique were combined, until finally opera was born: a combination of spoken and sung texts, set in sumptuous surroundings, and produced on a massive scale with full orchestra, a chorus and soloists. Classical and biblical stories were favourite themes at first, but as time progressed, the tone became gradually lighter, with operetta rising in popularity along with the gradual democratisation of opera to the wealthy middle classes as well as the traditional aristocratic audiences. Opera captured the imagination with its lofty themes, and it took on some of the pageantry of religious spectacles, providing intellectual, rather than spiritual inspiration to an eager public. By the twentieth century new genres, and notably also technology such as gramophones and radio, extended the range of genres for musical production available and brought musical performances to still further sectors of the population. Schoenberg’s compositions were, however, unreservedly directed at the music-loving elites, and his choice of theme for his own modern opera harks back to the religious heritage of the Old Testament. Snowdon describes the changes that opera had undergone in the intervening centuries as a negative process: “opera has become at best a museum of art, a kind of old-fashioned religion re-enacted inside great temples before a dwindling audience of the devout.” 3 This description fits the more intellectual style of opera and it can be contrasted with what Snowman calls the “dumbing down of a once great art form to the point where any appeal it has beyond the narrow world of the cognoscenti is necessarily derived from the imposition of hype, shock and bogus sex appeal.”4 Schoenberg’s Moses and Aron is musically difficult, both to perform and to listen to, and it deals with ancient themes using heavy moral and religious overtones. It hardly seems likely to attract a wide audience, but for Schoenberg, the composition of both text and musical score seem to have meaning beyond the immediate context, serving to some extent as a life’s work, or a summing up of the most important elements in his own view of the world that he wants to leave for posterity. Schoenberg had a complex religious background, being born a Jew in Roman Catholic Austria, and then converting to Protestant Christianity before returning to his Jewish roots in later life.5 This return was provoked by the rising anti-Semitism that was gaining ground in central Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century, and it is reported that Schoenberg started to think more deeply about his religious heritage after he suffered discrimination in being refused holiday accommodation because he was a Jew, even though by then he was technically a protestant Christian.6 One critic points out that the opera genre allows Schoenberg to address philosophical and musical issues in a unified way and that Moses and Aron “is a work that can be approached on many different levels: as an example of his twelve tone system, as a work of biblical commentary, or as an attempt to work out the problems facing the Jew in the modern world.”7 The early signs of fascism were apparent to Schoenberg in the late 1920s and one cannot help thinking that there are some political messages behind the figures of Moses and Aaron in the opera: “But confronted with fascism and dangerous anti-Semitism, and facing the prospect of obliteration, Schoenberg turned once again to Moses the liberator and lawgiver, this time seeking the way out of a deadly wilderness… Like Moses, Schoenberg’s entire life was formed in the context of the diaspora.”8 Just as the Israelites were exiled to Egypt and had to be led by Moses across the desert and the rivers to the promised land, so the early twentieth century European Jews were in need of a leader to take them to their homeland in the Middle East. There is more than a touch of criticism of twentieth century Jewish and possibly also Christian religions in the opera and this is achieved in the scene where Aron gives in to the people’s pressure to have an easy, understandable type of religion, rather than the difficult and austere God of Moses. Aron says “People of Israel/I return your gods to you./and also give you to them,/just as you have demanded…/You shall provide the stuff;/I shall give it such form: ordinary, visible, easy to understand/in gold forever./Bring out your gold!/Yield it! Call him forth!/You then shall be happy!”9 It seems that Schoenberg is using the biblical story in an updated artistic format to jolt both Jewish and Christian audiences into recognizing the godlessness of the materialistic twentieth century, and call them back to their monotheistic faith before it is too late. Schoenberg despises what is easy, obvious and rooted in the material world. He seems to be urging his audiences to aspire to something older, with more substance, that may be harder to grasp, but is well worth the intellectual and spiritual effort. No doubt Schoenberg was well aware of the great success that Wagner’s operatic tales of Germanic gods and heroic warriors was having in kindling a strong national consciousness amongst the German-speaking nations, and he no doubt attempted a sort of counter-attack with his own Judaeo-Christian oeuvre. The dramatic contrast between the two brothers Moses and Aron in the opera is emphasized in their different delivery styles: Moses uses a speaking voice, while Aron sings. This highlights the rather staid seriousness of the lawgiver with the much more lively and expressive contribution of the charismatic leader who brings the people the Golden Calf. It is as if Schoenberg is epitomizing the ancient faith of the Jews in the tragic figure of Moses, who is not listened to by the people. Aron represents the situation of modern Europeans, surrounded by many worldly temptations, and drawn away from single-minded worship of God: “While Moses is away, Aron creates the Golden Calf, around which an orgiastic dance takes place that culminates in the killing of the Youth and the sacrifice of the four Naked Virgins.”10 The danger to the Jews that Nazi ideology represented is no doubt implicit in this scene, and the disaster that follows on from entering into compromises with secular ideologies is no doubt acted out in the fate of innocent youth. Seen in this light, Schoenberg’s opera is prophetic, and although the ending of the opera was never completed, there are indications enough that it is Moses, and not Aron, who finally convinces the people to follow him and return to the old God who first chose the Jews as his own special people. Opera is a form of crying in the wilderness, for Schoenberg, using a form that reaches into secular society and breaks through superficial fashions. On the surface it fulfils the requirements of the opera form, and uses the sensuousness and extravagance of that secular genre to capture the attention of a jaded and worldly audience. Underneath, however, it is a powerful political and religious call to arms, and its underlying symbolic message would not be out of place in a synagogue or a Church. References Goldstein, Bluma. Reinscribing Moses: Heine, Kafka, Freud and Schoenberg in a European Wilderness. Harvard: University of Harvard Press, 1992. Grout, Donald Jay and Williams, Hermine Weigel. A Short History of Opera. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Snowman, Daniel. The Gilded Stage: The Social History of Opera. London: Atlantic Books, 2009. Tugendhaft, Aaron. “Schoenberg’s Moses and Aron.” The Chicago Undergraduate Journal of Jewish Studies Vol III (1997). Available online at: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/journals/jsjournal/tugendhaft.html Read More