MUSIC CHRONICLE
to resolve it by confining abstract forms only to the orchestral interludes.
But the libretto of
Peter Grimes
deals with a situation the meaning of
which can
be
understood only in the context of latter-day psychology,
and the intricacy and complexity of which cannot possibly be presented
through the chiaroscuro technique of
verismo.
Thus
Peter Grimes
is
aesthetically anachronistic, psychologically inadequate. The most
it
arrives at is melodrama in the Hollywood sense, which is all that such
an attenuation of the nineteenth-century
dramma lirico,
however af–
fecting, can
be.
The operatic problem for the composer is how to make dramatic
action understandable by means other than words. One way would
be
the return to the Mozartian conception of musical symmetry, where
musical cliches act as symbols of characters and events and become
understandable through stock forms similar to those of the
commedia
dell'arte.
The other is the way Stravinsky-who is always aware of the
pertinent problems but never succeeds in solving them to complete sat–
isfaction--has indicated. In Stravinsky's
L'Histoire du soldat,
the decisive
dramatic moments are danced and in his
Les Noces
a chorus in the pit
accompanies a pantomime on the stage. In both works the action is
made clear not only through pantomime or dance but also through
familiar musical forms, such as the march and ragtime in
L'Hist.oire
and the Russian folk tunes in
Les Noces.
De Falla similarly drives
stylization and stagecraft to the limit in his pantomime
El Retablo de
Maese Pedro,
when he has marionettes enact the drama to the ac–
companiment of the orchestra. In both his and Stravinsky's cases, music
is dramatic without being explicit, while the action is made articulate
without being literal.
Problems of such nature are the vital considerations of modern
opera. In
Peter Grimes,
however, Mr. Britten shows no concern for
them. Instead, he is satisfied to dress up an old formula with an oc–
casional modern device and thus has given us what is, however com–
petent, only a new version of
Grand Guignol.
Strange that this super–
ficiality should have led even some of opera's enemies to believe that
Peter Grimes
might be the dawn of a new era of music drama.
Kurt list
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