THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF NICO MUHLY’S MARNIE

Rachel Evans

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC

August 2020

Committee:

Ryan Ebright, Advisor

Eftychia Papanikolaou © 2020

Rachel Evans

All Rights Reserved iii

ABSTRACT

Ryan Ebright, Advisor

As Nico Muhly’s 2017 opera, Marnie, comes to a close, the eponymous character stands center stage, handcuffed and surrounded by police. She sings, paradoxically, “I’m free.” The plot arrives at this juxtaposition following a twisted and mysterious series of events in which Marnie,

a thief, is tormented by her crimes and ultimately freed by admitting her lies. While the ending

remains the same, Marnie’s outlook on her life and future differ from the ending of the opera’s

source: Winston Graham’s 1961 novel of the same name.

Throughout her story, Marnie is plagued by mental illness and pressured by the sexual

advances of her employers, Mark and Terry. While issues of mental health and sexual violence

have been prominent in opera going back hundreds of years, such themes were even more salient

in the social climate surrounding Marnie’s premiere. The 2010s saw an increased awareness of

both issues, and while Graham’s novel left them relatively unacknowledged, the post-2000 era

stressed the importance of representing redemption for victims. By confronting her trials with

mental illness and sexual coercion, as well as her own mistakes, Marnie is able to rise above her

dark past and redeem herself in a way that sets her apart from many of the canonic operatic

heroines still represented frequently in the twenty-first-century opera house.

In this thesis, I analyze the social issues of mental illness and sexual politics inherent in

Marnie’s story, with particular attention to how they are treated in Muhly and librettist Nicholas

Wright’s version. I juxtapose the history of both issues on the operatic stage and in the

surrounding social climate with Muhly’s interviews and writings in order to explicate the iv motivation behind Muhly’s compositional choices. I also conduct musical and dramatic analyses of the four main characters to show how musical elements represent their respective challenges with mental health. Through these methods, I highlight how Marnie responds to the time and place in which it was composed by presenting relevant social politics on stage.

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ryan Ebright, for his help and flexibility

during this process. His constant kindness and encouragement made writing my thesis all the

more fun and infinitely less stressful. I would also like to thank Dr. Eftychia Papanikolaou for

helping me expand my knowledge and love of opera, as well as her hard work helping me write

the paper I was inspired to create after seeing Marnie for the first time.

I would like to thank my friends, both at BGSU and beyond, for their constant support

throughout my writing process. They regularly acted as sounding boards and proofreaders when

called upon and celebrated with me when I reached my milestones.

Finally, I express sincerest gratitude to my parents who introduced me to the world of music from an early age and taught me to think critically about what I was hearing. Their support throughout my journey with music led me to where I am today and I cannot thank them enough for all the times they pushed me to better myself and use my voice. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I. ISSUES OF MENTAL ILLNESS ...... 8

Mental Illness On and Off Stage ...... 8

Operatic Depictions of Mental Illness ...... 9

Nico Muhly and Post-2000 Discourse ...... 18

Character Analyses ...... 23

Marnie’s Mother: Edith Elmer ...... 24

Marnie ...... 29

Shadow Marnies...... 35

Conclusions: The Role of Psychoanalysis ...... 37

CHAPTER II. SEXUAL POLITICS AND PROBLEMS ...... 42

The Hunter and Hunted: Animal Imagery in Marnie ...... 42

Toxic Masculinity: Character Analyses ...... 47

Mark ...... 50

Terry ...... 58

Visual Depictions ...... 63

Operatic Contexts: #MeToo and Classical Music Post-2000 ...... 65

CONCLUSION: RECEPTION AND PERCEPTION ...... 71

Criticism of Marnie...... 71

Operatic Relevancy Post-2000 ...... 74 vii

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 76

APPENDIX A. CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST ...... 80 1

INTRODUCTION

As Nico Muhly’s 2017 opera, Marnie, comes to a close, the eponymous character stands

center stage, handcuffed and surrounded by police. She sings, paradoxically, “I’m free.” Behind

her, images of rolling clouds swirl while the orchestral winds play bird-like lilting figures over

the final resolution. The plot arrives at this juxtaposition following a twisted and mysterious

series of events in which Marnie, a thief, is tormented by her crimes and ultimately freed by

admitting her lies. By confronting her trials with mental illness and sexual coercion, as well as

her own mistakes, Marnie is able to rise above her dark past and redeem herself in a way that sets her apart from many of the canonic operatic heroines still represented frequently in the twenty- first-century opera house.

The inspiration for Muhly’s Marnie comes from the 1961 novel of the same name by

Winston Graham. The book is set in 1950s England and tells the story of Marnie, a young

woman who jumps from town to town, changing her identity and stealing from her unsuspecting

employers. In her latest employ, she catches the eye of the company’s manager, Mark Rutland,

who then finds her attempting to steal from his business and later blackmails her into marriage.

Muhly’s opera is in fact the second prominent adaptation of this story, the first being Alfred

Hitchcock’s 1964 film of the same name. In this earlier version, Hitchcock significantly alters

the plot in order to stress different elements of the titular character’s personality and backstory,

both important factors for such a prolific director of psychological thrillers.

Muhly’s version sees a return to the book for inspiration. For the libretto, Muhly chose to

work with the British playwright Nicholas Wright, whose condensed version of the events

showcases a succinct plotline that many reviewers believed fell short of effectively depicting the 2

challenges that Marnie faces. Marnie was co-commissioned by the English National Opera

(ENO) and the Metropolitan Opera in the mid-2010s and was first performed at ENO in the fall

of 2017. In subsequent performances at the Metropolitan Opera the following year, it was

included as the company’s November performance for the Met Live Broadcast series. The

production was directed by Michael Mayer and featured visual designs by Julian Crouch and

video projections by 59 Productions, which had also participated in Muhly’s first opera, Two

Boys.1 In discussing his motivation to write an opera on Marnie, Muhly stated, “it would indeed be fabulous, as everyone had Graham on their mind because of Poldark,” alluding to Graham’s book series that recently gained popularity through a new television show which originally aired on PBS in 2015.2 But the opera’s contemporaneity went well beyond the momentary popularity

of its source material’s author; Muhly also used the opera to confront two issues of growing

importance in the new millennium: mental illness and sexual violence.

Although sexual violence and mental illness have been prominent topics in opera going

back hundreds of years, such themes are particularly impactful considering the social climate at

the time of Marnie’s conception and presentation. The 2010s saw an increased awareness of both

issues, stemming from efforts undertaken following the turn of the century. The two sources for

this plot—Graham’s novel and Hitchcock’s film adaptation—both originated in the 1960s,

meaning that a lot of these problematic circumstances would not have induced as much shock

and outrage. However, with the changing social climate of the post-2000 era it became important

to bring light to these issues in a way that condemned them and uplifted their victims, who as the

heroines in many of the standard works presented in the opera house end up disgraced, “mad,” or

dead.

1 For a list of the full creative team see Appendix. 2 Neil Fisher, “From Hitchcock to ENO: The Many Lives of Marnie,” The Times, November 13, 2017. 3

Mental health awareness gained particular importance as the world embraced a

heightened use of technology and as physicians began categorizing more common forms of

mental illness such as depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic

stress disorder, the last of which became a well-known illness through its wide effect on soldiers

in the early 2000s. In closer proximity to the world of opera, studies in the 2010s revealed a

higher propensity for mental illness in musicians; Nico Muhly himself wrote publicly of his own

history with depression. And in the advancements of sexual violence awareness, the early 2000s

saw the beginning of several organizations and movements that helped to bring awareness to the

widespread nature of sexual assault and harassment and expanded the accessibility of resources,

especially to women who due to circumstance or background were often restricted from this aid.

The 2010s saw the beginning of the #MeToo movement and the attempted purging of individuals

who had been accused of sexual misconduct, seen most visibly in the allegations against the film

producer Harvey Weinstein in the mainstream media and the allegations against opera stars such as the conductor James Levine and singer Placido Domingo in the music world.

Both issues are prominent not just in the opera Marnie, but in the novel as well. In fact, the cases of mental illness and sexual aggression in the latter are more clearly defined, as most

book adaptations are in comparison with their hours-long theatrical counterparts. While

important moments in the plot do differ, the general storyline stays the same. Marnie steals from

her employers Crombie & Strutt and then runs away. She visits Edith, her mother, and Lucy Nye,

a former neighbor who now helps take care of Edith. When Marnie later takes a position at a

printing company, she becomes the object of desire for two of the directors, Mark and Terry.

While Terry attempts to seduce her, Mark tries to get to know her. When their advances go too

far she decides it is time to leave, but not before robbing the company. Mark catches her in the 4

act, and before anyone can find out, he blackmails her into marriage (although he believes that

she loves him). On their honeymoon, Marnie refuses Mark’s advances and eventually tells him

that she never loved him, and in his anger he assaults her. Upset and disgusted, Marnie attempts

suicide. After they return home she tries to stay on Mark’s good side, but finds Terry

increasingly suspicious. She begins to see a psychoanalyst at Mark’s request and recalls several

moments from her childhood which she had previously blocked out or forgotten. When she runs

into Mr. Strutt at a party, she is forced to either confess to her crimes or disappear again. While

Mark is injured after an accident during a fox hunt, Marnie attempts to steal from him but finds

herself unable to take the money. She returns home to find her mother has died, whereupon Lucy

tells her the truth about the death of her baby brother. Ultimately, Marnie ends up being led to

the police by Terry and her future is left a mystery. Several circumstances differ from novel to

opera, including Mark’s coercion and later assault of Marnie, the death of Marnie’s brother and

Edith’s treatment of her, and Terry and Marnie’s relationship. However, the issues of mental illness and sexual assault so prominent in the book remain just as significant in the opera.

These social politics have become prominent topics in twentieth-century scholarly discourse as well. Confronted with the growth of mental health challenges and sexual assault cases on the college and university campuses where many are employed, musicologists have begun to rethink the inclusion and presentation of works in their curricula that depict sexual

violence and mental illness. An issue of the Journal of the American Musicological Society in

2018, for instance, included a colloquy titled “Sexual Violence in Opera: Scholarship, Pedagogy,

and Production as Resistance.”3 In this feature, Suzanne Cusick and Monica Hershberger put

together a group of six people, including themselves, to discuss issues of sexual violence in

3 Suzanne G. Cusick and Monica A. Hershberger, “Colloquy: Sexual Violence in Opera: Scholarship, Pedagogy, and Production as Resistance,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 71, issue 1 (April 2018): 213-253. 5

specific operas and in operatic staging. Cusick and Hershberger wrote, “This colloquy grew out of an especially lively panel discussion at the 2016 annual meeting of the American

Musicological Society.”4 The colloquy came out two years later and was thus able to add even more information to the problematic topics discussed in person, such as how to approach

teaching classic operas that depict sexual violence and how to stage these circumstances in

sensitive ways. Around the same time as the panel, Kassandra L. Hartford released an article in the Journal of Music History Pedagogy titled “Beyond the Trigger Warning: Teaching Operas that Depict Sexual Violence.”5 In a world that is still dominated by the canon of “Western Art

Music” tradition, certain operas remain unavoidable. However, Hartford claims that it is possible

to tackle these issues head on instead of trying to cover the problems with a trigger warning in

order to focus on the music. Marnie’s premiere was situated between the publication of these two

articles. While it is a new opera, and these essays focus on how to teach and stage old operas, it

is clear that the consideration of sexual violence on the operatic stage is a growing field for

discussion.

The 2010s also saw a rise in disability studies in music. This includes the depiction and

representation of those with both physical and mental disabilities, as well as composer

experiences with disabilities. This growing discipline can be seen in the publication of The

Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies in 2015.6 In relation to opera specifically,

2015 also saw the publication of the book Disordered Heroes in Opera by John Cordingly.7 In

this book, Cordingly discusses male operatic characters and how they represent psychological

4 Cusick and Hershberger, “Colloquy: Sexual Violence in Opera,” 213. 5 Kassandra L. Hartford, “Beyond the Trigger Warning: Teaching Operas that Depict Sexual Violence,” Journal of Music History Pedagogy 7, no. 1 (2016): 19-34. 6 Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 7 John Cordingly, Disordered Heroes in Opera: A Psychiatric Report, edited by Claire Seymour (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2015). 6

disorders as opposed to madness. While this book focuses on male characters in opera, it shows a

more psychologically scientific approach to understanding their motivations and actions.

In this thesis, I analyze the social issues of mental illness and sexual politics inherent in

Marnie’s story, with particular attention to how they are treated in Muhly and librettist Nicholas

Wright’s version. I juxtapose the history of both mental illness and sexual politics on the operatic

stage and in the surrounding social climate with Muhly’s interviews and writings in order to

explicate the motivation behind this particular operatic storyline and Muhly’s compositional

choices. I also conduct musical and dramatic analyses of the four main characters to show how

their individual stories become intertwined and how musical elements represent their respective

challenges with mental health. Through these methods, I highlight how Marnie responds to the

time and place in which it was composed by presenting relevant social politics on stage, but also how it may have fallen short of doing justice to such important topics at a time when representation is one of the most prevalent discussions in operatic discourse.

In the first chapter, I focus on how the opera represents issues of mental health by first analyzing the history of operatic representations of mental illness and how they frame Muhly’s

opera. I then discuss the evolving discourse of mental health post-2000, especially within the

musical community and by Muhly himself. These two contexts inform my subsequent character

analyses of Marnie and her mother, Edith, which center on their own personal stories within the

plot, related mental illnesses, vocal style, and instrumental pairing. I end the chapter by

discussing the importance of the psychoanalysis scene in Act Two and how Marnie and Edith’s mental illnesses interact with issues of sexual politics.

In chapter 2, I delve into issues of toxic masculinity and sexual violence. I begin by outlining cases of animal imagery in both book and opera, which allude repeatedly to the gender 7 dynamics at play in the story. I then discuss issues of toxic masculinity through character analyses of Mark and Terry, conducted in much the same manner as chapter 1, but substituting their desires for inherent masculinity as opposed to their experiences with mental illness. This masculine pressure is visually depicted by the main characters and the dancers. Finally, I place these issues in context through a discussion of the sexual politics surrounding Marnie’s premiere, including the growing popularity of the #MeToo movement and relevant cases within the musical world.

In closing, I discuss the reception of Muhly’s opera and how the operatic presentation of these issues impacts the world of opera. By and large, critics faulted the opera’s handling of sexual violence. But Marnie may be more important than it was originally perceived. Its engagement with issues of mental health and negative depictions of toxic masculinity, while imperfect, nevertheless are strikingly relevant in the ever-evolving social and musical world of the twenty-first century. In conclusion, I show how this opera may fit into a developing trend of widening representation and growing discourse on issues that have historically been ignored by the operatic world. 8

CHAPTER I. ISSUES OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Mental Illness On and Off Stage

Of the many themes prevalent in Muhly’s opera, Marnie’s mental illness is one of the

most prominent. Stemming from a traumatic event in her childhood, Marnie’s habits of lying,

disassociating, and stealing all act as manifestations of a restlessness in her subconscious. The

suppressed memories of her infant brother’s death are periodically brought to the forefront by

everyday occurrences in her life, but it is not until Mark convinces her to seek psychological help

that she remembers what actually happened on that fateful night, or at least what she was told

happened.

Muhly and Wright’s depictions of Marnie’s psychological health draw on the tropes of

mental illness in opera but present them in a more modern guise. Marnie continues in a long line

of women in opera who have dealt with mental illness, but hers stems from outside pressures and

traumas that she can no longer recall, as opposed to the internal pains and weaknesses depicted

in madwomen of earlier operas. Her dissociative states and recollections are reminiscent of the

circumstances of traditional mad scenes in earlier operas but deal with the subjects in much more

introspective and personal ways, both musically and within the plot. In addition, her

psychological symptoms are more specific, making it relatively easier to understand the source

of her pain and trauma. This introspective nature and interest in the source of her mental illness

reflect the 21st century’s discourses and awareness of mental health. Muhly himself has a history of mental illness and opened up about his experiences with manic depression in a 2015 blog post titled “Thoughts on Being Well.” His openness started a dialogue about creating while depressed within the musical—and in particular the compositional—world, as seen in several reactionary 9

interviews and personal essays written as part of a week-long series “Musical Creativity and

Mental Health” conducted by Ellen McSweeney just four months later.8 While this episode predates Marnie, Muhly’s journey with mental illness connects him personally to the character

he would write within the next two years. The character development depicted in Marnie

therefore can be contextualized within a long line of mentally unwell women in opera, but this

particular opera deals with the presentation of such issues in a way that reflects contemporary

opinions and attitudes regarding mental health.

Operatic Depictions of Mental Illness

Madness was a popular subject in artistic depictions and was often present in written and

visual arts well before the birth of opera around 1600. In his book Madness in Civilization,

Andrew Scull details the paradox that while madness was seen as outside of civilization and therefore isolating, it was also a popular fascination within contemporary culture. He states,

“madness exists not just in opposition to civilization, or solely on its margins. On the contrary, it has been a central topic of concern for artists, for dramatists, novelists, composers, divines, and physicians and scientists…In important ways, that is, madness is indelibly part of civilization, not located outside it.”9

From ancient to medieval times, madness was seen as a punishment from god (or the

gods, depending on the religion) and was often treated through practices such as exorcism. In

European societies, religious heretics of Catholic and Protestant communities often displayed

elements of psychosis and were outcast, tortured, or killed for their “crimes.” In the

8 Ellen McSweeney, “This Week: Musical Creativity and Mental Health,” NewMusicBox, September 7, 2015. 9 Andrew Scull, Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 10. 10

Enlightenment, the treatment of those with mental illness shifted to a more scientific, albeit

archaic, approach, utilizing older methods, such as bloodletting and purgatives which were

originally proposed by Hippocrates in the fourth century BCE, as well as newer techniques.10

Stemming from this history of the punishment theory, however, madness was still seen as a

social characteristic that ostracized the afflicted.

Women were most often the subject of madness in artistic depiction. One possible

explanation for such a trend stems from the belief that madness was a punishment from god on

religious grounds. Historically, women have been cast as the weaker sex in mind, body, and

spirit, exemplified most famously in the story of Adam and Eve. Femininity was later associated

with a lack of reason as well as a heightened sexuality that threatened the moral obligations of

devout religion. This interpretation eventually resulted in widespread witch hunts by Protestants

and Catholics alike starting in the fifteenth century and continuing for many years. While not

based on issues of mental health, per se, the association with possession by and closeness to the

devil harkens back to the early religious associations with madness. These religious conceptions

of madness are alluded to in the opera through the beliefs of Marnie’s mother.

Within the history of opera, as it developed from the seventeenth through the nineteenth

centuries, what we would identify today as mental illness was then described in opera simply as

“madness” and was found mostly in female characters. Such generalizations stemmed from a

lack of knowledge about and treatment of mental disorders, meaning anyone not in a normal

mental state was ostracized and often pitied. Such depictions in opera led to the creation of “mad

scenes” in which a mentally unstable character sings a solo aria, often in reaction to an event that

has taken place, while other characters stare on in awe. The aria written for such a scene was

10 Neel Burton, “A Brief History of Psychiatry,” Psychology Today, June 2, 2012. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201206/brief-history-psychiatry. 11

often very difficult and gave the performer the ability to show off their vocal prowess, their

virtuosity serving as a musical vehicle for isolating or othering the character within the narrative.

They were often written for sopranos and involved techniques of ornamentation or rapid

coloratura. Socially, they were often also associated with any woman who, for one reason or

another, departed from gender norms or expectations of the time. While Marnie’s depiction is

much more reminiscent of twenty-first-century conceptions of mental illness, her situation

embodies the fundamental characteristics of a mad scene, namely the dissociative state she

demonstrates in the psychoanalyst’s office while being watched by an outsider who does not

know what is going on in her mind.

In his essay “On the Origins of an Operatic Topos: The Mad-Scene,” Paolo Fabbri details

the rise of the mad scene in poetry and plays and how it led to the emergence of the style in

opera. The first instance of the two meeting was in a concept Monteverdi worked on, but never

completed: an operatic version of Giulio Strozzi’s Licori finta pazza innamorata d’Aminta in the

early seventeenth century.11 Stylistically, the mad scene of the poetic and theatrical tradition is

described as “[focusing] on haphazard speech and emphatic, long-winded monologues during

which the unfolding of the events represented in the play is slowed or entirely halted.”12 These

scenes were also meant to act as comedic relief, depicted as absurd and chaotic among the

normalcy of the serious play and later Baroque opera seria.

While rather tame in our modern perception, the first well-known mad scene is Orlando’s

aria “Ah! Stigie larve…Vaghe pupille” from act II of Handel’s Orlando of 1733, in which the

eponymous character sees visions of Hades after a failed attempt at murderous wrath. This aria

11 Paolo Fabbri, “On the Origins of an Operatic Topos: The Mad-Scene,” in Con Che Soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580-1740, edited by Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 159. 12 Fabbri, “On the Origins of an Operatic Topos,” 164. 12

was written for castrato and originally performed by the famous Senesino. While the character is

not female, the high voice and preference for ornament is maintained. In the eighteenth century,

a much more stereotypical example is found in Mozart’s Idomeneo (1780-81), performed by the

female soprano Electra. In the act III aria “D’Oreste, d’Ajace,” she cries over intense

orchestration while watching her former love marry someone else, and her singing is

characterized by large leaps and powerful high notes. In addition to the musical elements, the

text speaks of “the torments of Orestes and of Ajax,” two characters from Greek mythology who

went mad and committed suicide, respectively. She sings of her desire to end her pain through

death. Such an example distinguishes the mad scene from another popular vocal style of the

same time, the rage aria. While the two aria types share similar musical styles, rage arias such as

“Ah, chi mi dice mai” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni more typically stem from a desire for revenge and come from a place of relatively greater reason. While both arias share loud, rapid, and vocally impressive vocal styles, the text depicts the fine line between madness and extreme anger.

The nineteenth century saw a shift in attitudes regarding the treatment of mental illness.

Following the heightened importance of science and reason that came about with the

Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, people became more interested in classifying and understanding mental illness. Mental hospitals and asylums sprang up throughout

Europe and the Americas. Jean-Etienne-Dominique Esquirol wrote a book in the early 1800s which is now often considered “the first modern treatise on clinical psychiatry,” and in 1883

Emil Kraepelin classified mental disorders into three groups in his Compendium der Psychiatrie.

As a practice, psychiatry and the study of disorders became popular, but the treatment of patients was famously below par. 13

In the musical world, the extreme ranges and virtuosic displays characteristic of the

eighteenth century were heightened in the nineteenth, when bel canto style became especially

important. Many of the most iconic operatic mad scenes were supplied by Donizetti and Bellini,

including the epitome of the mad scene: “Spargi d’amaro pianto” from Donizetti’s Lucia di

Lammermoor. In this scene, a mad Lucia rushes into the crowd after killing her husband and

sings, seemingly to herself, about a vision of her and the man she truly loved, accompanied by a

glass harmonica. In the vein of such a clear-cut example, Andreas Erfurth and Paul Hoff list the

elements of bel canto mad scenes, which include dissonance, suspensions and anticipations, a

wide vocal range, rapid movement between high and low, sudden harmony changes, coloratura,

and the use of “soft and feeble” accompanimental instruments like flute, cor anglais and glass

harmonica. In this representation of madness, the mad scene marks the culmination of a slow

descent into madness that is created little by little over the course of the plot and is

“characterized by imagination, illusion and loss of structure developed after a cascade of

negative live events.”13 In the case of Lucia, the glass harmonica, often played by a flute in

modern performances, is often considered to be inside of Lucia’s mind during her dissociative

state. Such instrumental pairing continues to be a trend in operatic scenes, especially where

madness, chaos, and degenerate acts are present, such as in the actions and psyches of Marnie and the other morally compromised characters.

While Lucia is the most quintessential example of this operatic style in the nineteenth

century, the mad scene was also used by Bellini in his operas such as I puritani and Il Pirata, and

is found as well in works by Meyerbeer, Rossini and, for obvious reasons, in Verdi’s Macbeth.

While the musical style of the mad scene shifts according to changing operatic tastes and

13 Andreas Erfurth and Paul Hoff, “Mad Scenes in Early 19th-Century Opera,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 102, no. 4 (October 2000): 313. 14

techniques, mad scenes in their essence continue to surface in operas with mentally ill characters, including the dissociative flashbacks in Marnie’s sessions with a psychiatrist.

The trend of mad scenes during the nineteenth century reflected women’s place in

society. Women of this time had an extremely strict path to follow socially. In her thesis,

Julianna Little states that “the woman was to be passive, dependent, and obedient to her husband

or father and never allowed any autonomy in thought or action.”14 With such strict bounds set on

the female, it is easy to see how such pressures could drive a woman mad, but also how any

deviation from this ideal could be seen as inherently mad or insane in nature. Marnie similarly is

held to extremely high standards, but by her mother. On the other hand, she rejects the normal

behavior of women her age in order to maintain anonymity, perplexing her coworkers and

casting her off as a “dark horse.” Such elements subvert the trend of going mad through pressure,

but adhere to the idea that a woman outside the norms of society has something wrong with her.

Surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, certain scholars and scientists, including

Sigmund Freud, developed an interest in the human psyche and the origins and underlying causes of mental health issues. This attitude furthered a change in discourse from generalized

“madness” to the classification of mental disorders using a much more scientific approach.

Within opera, this led to characters whose mental illness, while still not clearly stated, nevertheless became much more multi-faceted, not just covering issues of insanity but also of trauma, sexuality, and pain, among others. Two characters from the first decade of the twentieth century that play with these multi-faceted depictions of mental illness and instability are

Melisande of Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande (1902) and the eponymous character of Richard

Strauss’s Salome (1905). In the former, Melisande’s background is unknown, but from the

14 Little, Juliana, “‘Frailty, thy name is woman’: Depictions of Female Madness,” (Master’s Thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015), 33. 15

beginning she is a sad and distant character, never revealing more of herself than she wants to

and refusing the touch of anyone around her. In his writings, Maurice Maeterlinck identifies

Melisande as one of the wives of the Bluebeard of French folklore, who married women and

later killed them. It is following her escape from Bluebeard that Prince Golaud stumbles upon

Melisande in the woods and later takes her as his bride, despite knowing very little about her. In

her analysis of the opera, Juana Antokoletz references Melisande’s fear of Golaud and distance

from her past as elements of a dissociative episode stemming from her previous trauma.15 In this work, the emphasis is less on the inclusion of a mad scene and more on the depiction of a troubled character.

In a contrasting vein, Strauss’s Salome suffers from a very different kind of mental instability. In their chapter “Staging the Female Body,” Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon discuss the association at the time between the adolescent nature of women and how this leads to lack of control even in healthy women. In looking at psychological discourse of the early twentieth century, they quote Henry Maudsley’s The Physiology and Pathology of Mind, which in essence states that stressful or exciting events, puberty, and menstruation in the unstable can lead to bouts of violence and morbid thoughts.16 This connects to the actions of Salome, whose

simultaneous virginity and sexuality paint a picture of a girl in transition who, through a fit of

passion and a predilection for insanity, commits the grotesque act of kissing the severed head of

John the Baptist. This scene is paired with an early twentieth-century version of the mad aria that

continues the move toward introspective madness seen in Lucia. As in Donizetti’s opera, the

15 Juana Canabal Antokoletz, “Trauma, Gender, and the Unfolding of the Unconscious,” in Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartók (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 34–35. 16 Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, “Staging the Female Body: Richard Strauss’s Salome,” In Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera, ed. Mary Ann Smart (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 212. 16

main female character is accompanied by a flute that trills throughout the beginning. However,

the harmonic language is much more dissonant, and even when major harmony seems possible,

the music descends into dissonance at the moment of resolution representing the truly disturbing

nature of the scene.

Moving further into the twentieth century, this multi-faceted mental illness appears in

several expressionist operas, most notably Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which deals with elements of trauma and, as a result, deteriorated mental stability. In the standard music history classroom,

Wozzeck is the first major male character to be afflicted with mental illness. The many traumas he has faced during his life, including his time in the military, verbal abuse from his captain,

intense poverty, experimental medical procedures, and the infidelity of his common-law wife, all

contribute to his mental illness and, ultimately, the acts of murder and suicide. While highly

formulaic in structure, Berg’s use of expressionism and atonality musically represents the

character’s madness. This stems from a heightened attention to the discourse and treatment of

mental illness in society, especially following the first world war and the trauma faced by many

soldiers who witnessed its heavy destruction including Berg himself.

These trends of socially-induced mental illness continue in the latter half of the twentieth

century. One notable example is the eponymous character from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter

Grimes. While Grimes is by no means a kind or sympathetic character, his mental health issues

stem from society’s treatment of him. Under suspicion for murdering his assistants, he is

shunned from society and ultimately commits suicide. The most noticeable example of this is the

aria in act III, where Peter is trying to determine what to do after another apprentice of his

slipped on rocks and fell to his death, an accident for which he has been blamed. “To hell with

all your mercy” depicts Grimes’s isolation through a solo vocal line above sparse orchestral 17

accompaniment, and the juxtaposition of the main character with the disembodied chorus that

accuses him. This scene takes the introspective and isolated elements of mental health that had

developed slowly over time and amplifies them.

The circumstances surrounding the madness of these two male characters have significant

implications for discourse on the source of mental illness, notably supporting the idea that mental

illness is something that can be imposed on a person by societal pressures and traumatic events.

It is interesting to note that both Grimes and Wozzeck faced outside pressures that led to their

madness, including war trauma, verbal abuse, and constant suspicion from society as well as

other more individual issues. This contrasts significantly with the female characters who have

mad scenes. While many of these female characters’ madness stem from a loss of love or

unwanted marital conditions, there are a host of other women in opera who deal with similar

issues and do not go mad. In this way, the history of mental illness in opera can be read as having

a heavily gendered bias when it comes to madness: men become mad due to outside pressures,

while women become mad because of an inherent weakness of mind. This, however, is not reflected to such an extent in modern operas, as seen quite clearly in Marnie’s traumatic past.

These few historical examples show not only the gradual shift in mental illness discourses, but also in the way that mental illness is depicted operatically. Many early examples of mental illness in opera were written for female characters. This reflected the opinion that women were the weaker sex and more susceptible to the factors and hysteria that led to

“madness.” However, along with the heightened interest and near-obsession with mental illness in the early twentieth century, as well as a more broad approach to the topic moving forward, operatic characters who faced mental illness became more introspective and multi-faceted, were not always women, and often showed the role that society played in creating mental illness, as 18

opposed to the earlier assumption that mental illness stemmed from a weakness of mind. These changes also appear in the music, shifting from the powerful and highly virtuosic mad scenes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the introspective, sparse, and (inner) dialogue-like

singing style of later arias. These changes also show a growing openness to the discussion of

mental health and emphasis on understanding its source. This multi-faceted and almost

sympathetic nature continues into the twenty-first century and can be clearly seen in Nico

Muhly’s Marnie.

Nico Muhly and Post-2000 Discourse

In contrast to these past depictions, Marnie’s characterization in the new millennium

reflects an increased social awareness of the sources and effects of m ental illness. The

exploration of her psyche in a Freudian manner shows an interest in the subconscious reasons for

her compulsive lying, stealing, and aversion to touch, implying that her mental illness is imposed

upon her by past traumas as opposed to weakness of mind. While the dialogue between the

doctor and Marnie in act 2, scene 3 is highly gendered and discriminatory, the inclusion of such a

scene and background draws from the view of mental health in the setting of the opera (mid-

twentieth century) as well as current interest in finding the source of psychological pain while shedding the stigmas that normally accompany mental illness.17

While the stigmas surrounding mental health have decreased exponentially since 2000, there still exist a great many difficulties surrounding mental illness treatment and prevention.

This is largely due to the fact that, unlike physical illnesses, mental health professionals do not

have definitive ways to diagnose and treat mental illness, and a lot of what is done ends up being

17 This scene is discussed in detail at the end of Chapter I. 19

trial and error. A Mental Health Letter from Harvard University references a study of 9,000

adults done between 2001 and 2003 that showed 46% had one or more psychiatric disorders, the

most prevalent of which were anxiety disorders including PTSD, depression, and anxiety.

Compared to the same study done 10 years earlier from 1991 to 1992, the number of people

seeking mental health services rose by roughly 50%; however, the rate of mental illness did not

rise. This is partly due to the heightened rate of practitioners’ willingness to diagnose and

prescribe medication. The letter recognizes that these statistics may seem surprisingly high, but

notes that although most people will have a physical illness at some point, “unlike most physical

illnesses, mental illness usually begins in youth and affects people in the prime of life.”18

While this letter may make it seem as if awareness is the major factor in growing levels

of psychiatric help, Rebecca Fuhrer and Katherine Keys argue that the stressors leading to

mental illness have been on the rise as well: “Given the ubiquity of traumas that arise as part of

the human condition, attention to our mental health and wellness is an integral part of life.”19 In

their minds, expanding technology use and the social issues that come along with this have had a

negative effect on our collective mental health, as have growing problems with medicinal drugs,

such as those seen in the opioid crisis, which have increased mental illness stemming from

treatment for physical health issues.

Whether it is just awareness of mental illness that is growing or also the stressors that

cause mental illness, the growing discourse necessitates an increase in research on preventing

and treating mental illness. Efforts to aid this research have been given a nation-wide platform in

the form of the 21st Century Cures Act passed in December 2016. The act supports efforts to treat

18 “The Prevalence of Treatment of Mental Illness Today,” Harvard Mental Health Letter, March 2014, https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-prevalence-and-treatment-of-mental-illness-today. 19 Rebecca Fuhrer and Katherine M. Keyes, “Population Mental Health in the 21st Century,” American Journal of Public Health 109, suppl 3 (June 2019): S152-S153, 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305200. 20

drug addiction, expand suicide prevention, close the treatment gap, elevate crisis response, and

treat maternal depression. Richard Frank says that “this package of initiatives caps a decade that

has made some of the largest changes in mental health and substance use disorder policies in

American history.”20 Indeed, such initiatives were a necessity given the growing discourse on

mental illness, but they also show an effort on the part of the federal government to continue to

increase awareness, help to break down the stigmas of mental health, and make diagnosis and

treatment more effective.

While many strides have been made in this field, the music community continues to feel

the pressure of mental health issues. In 2017, the organization Help Musicians UK funded a

study conducted by Sally Anne Gross and Dr. George Musgrave titled “Can Music Make You

Sick?” The initial survey, which simply aimed to pinpoint the general basis of the problem,

found that of 2,211 musicians responding (all UK-based), 71% had dealt with panic attacks

and/or high anxiety while 69% said they had suffered from depression. Of the many contributing

factors to these statistics, the main one was “poor working conditions including: the difficulty of

sustaining a living, anti-social working hours, exhaustion and the inability to plan their

time/future.”21 In response to this study, the magazine Classical Music launched the Harmony in

Mind campaign, which receives support from major organizations such as the British

Association for Performing Arts Medicine, the Incorporated Society of Musicians, the Musicians

Union, the Royal Society of Musicians, Music Support, and the Time to Change Employer

Pledge. In the “Harmony Hub,” the website for Classical Music states that “[the campaign] will

encourage every classical music industry body to strive for a holistic, supportive working

20 Richard Frank, “What the 21st Century Cures Act Means for Behavioral Health,” Harvard Health Blog, January 19, 2017, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/21st-century-cures-act-means-behavioral-health-2017011910982. 21 Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave, “Can Music Make You Sick? Part 1: Pilot Survey Report Summary,” London: University of Westminster/Music Tank, November 2016. 21

environment in which mental health is destigmatized.”22 Some of the resources offered on the

Harmony Hub are a collaborative playlist of pieces that have helped musicians feel peaceful during times of stress, a forum for sharing experiences, a podcast, and links to available mental health resources as well as their partners’ websites. Through all this, the campaign aims to make mental healthcare more accessible to a group that, according to the study, are roughly three times more likely to suffer from depression and other mental health problems.23

In the second decade of the new millennium, musicians and composers started to publicly

discuss their own difficulties with mental health. One of the first prominent articles was

published in “The Score,” a column for the New York Times which features “American

composers on creating ‘classical’ music in the 21st century.” In his 2013 entry, “My Dark

Materials: The Music of Depression,” Keeril Makan detailed how his music reflected his slow

shift from deep depression to relative serenity.24 Two years later, Nico Muhly discussed his own

experiences with mental health in a blog post titled “Thoughts on Being Well.” In response to

this blog, NewMusicBox writer Ellen McSweeney penned a series of essays titled “Musical

Creativity and Mental Health” in which she interviewed several composers about their own experiences, including a discussion with Keeril Makan and The Score editor Daniel Felsenfeld.

In this interview, Makan and Felsenfeld discuss the effects of Makan’s 2013 article, commenting that “Once you discuss these things, people come out of the woodwork sharing their experience.

But no one wants to take the first steps.”25 They discuss how mental health has long been an

22 “Harmony Hub,” Harmony in Mind, Classical Music, https://www.rhinegold.co.uk/rhinegold- publishing/magazines/classical-music/harmony-in-mind/. 23 Gross and Musgrave, “Can Music Make You Sick? Part 1: Pilot Survey Report Summary,” Music Minds Matter, 2016, https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/assets/publications/files/can_music_make_you_sick_summary.pdf 24 Keeril Makan, “My Dark Materials: The Music of Depression,” The New York Times Opinionator, January 15, 2013. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/the-music-of-depression/. 25 Ellen McSweeney, “The Best and Worst Things: A Conversation with Keeril Makan and Daniel Felsenfeld,” NewMusicBox, September 10, 2015. https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/the-best-and-worst-thing-a-conversation-with- keeril-makan-and-daniel-felsenfeld/. 22

issue for musicians, citing the letters of Beethoven as indicative of depression, Mozart as

indicative of Asperger’s, and Berlioz as indicative of manic depression. This “madness,”

however, was seen as “a badge of honor” in their time, which Felsenfeld says is another problem

with being a composer with mental illness: “[Mental illness] is either a badge of honor, or

hushed up entirely.”26 Makan’s article and McSweeney’s interviews in September 2015 are but two examples of the growing discourse within the music community, and in particular the composition community, about mental health both leading up to and in reaction to Muhly’s blog post.

In “Thoughts on Being Well,” posted on May 27, 2015, Muhly detailed his decade-long struggle with mental health and medication. He states that during the ten-year period when his life appeared to be going well from the outside, including the premiere of his opera Two Boys at

the Metropolitan Opera and a string of other successful projects, he internally “felt empty, or

invisible.”27 He discusses how he became obsessed with work and that when others did not put in the same effort as he did he felt extreme anger and resentment, sometimes to the point of lashing out. After seeing a new doctor who reevaluated his treatment plan, Muhly describes a moment of clarity in which he realized that his community was the one part of his life that he was genuinely proud of, but that he had begun to feel self-conscious of his “obsessive

communications” with his friends. Muhly then provides an anecdote in which, during a fit of

rage, he “found that [his] rage had three dimensions and an origin story” and that it was

“springing from this inner vacancy and sadness.”28 At the core of his narrative, Muhly attempts to show that growing and getting better after a difficult bout of mental illness is not about doing

26 McSweeney, “The Best and Worst Thing: A Conversation with Keeril Makan and Daniel Felsenfeld.” 27 Nico Muhly, “Thoughts on Being Well,” The Web Site of Nico Muhly, May 27, 2015. http://nicomuhly.com/news/2015/thoughts-on-being-well/. 28 Nico Muhly, “Thoughts on Being Well.” 23

it all at once, but realizing what has been going wrong in your life, where those feelings come

from, and recognizing that you are not perfect and will make mistakes. His concluding

paragraph seems to evoke similar feelings to those we are left with at the end of Marnie, which

was coincidentally conceived in the same year as this blog post and would premiere just two

years later: “I don’t think I am yet at, or even near, that time, and my flightpath might be

asymptotic to that time, but I like seeing, through the flashes of fire and reminders of difficulty, a path towards stillness and serenity.”29 This simultaneous recognition of the sadness, the corruption, the anger, the negative, all while looking forward to a future of calm and resolution

(at least to as far an extent as possible), reminds one of the captured Marnie in handcuffs,

reveling in the freedom she has found by ridding herself of the lies, secrets, and terrors

surrounding her life.

Character Analyses

Of the many characters in the opera and novel, the two that most openly show symptoms

of mental illness are Marnie and her mother, Edith. The two versions of the story differ in many

ways, but these characters’ mental health issues stem mainly from the same event: the death of

Edith’s second child. This trauma was brought about by and manifested itself in different ways

between mother and daughter, but ties them together in their struggles despite Edith’s suspicions

in the novel and animosities in the opera.

Through character analysis, I explore some of the causes of Marnie and Edith’s

symptoms of mental illness and how they are represented musically. I focus first on their

characterizations in both novel and opera, as well as a brief description of the differing plots, and

then delve into the characters’ respective musical styles and orchestration choices. One element

29 Nico Muhly, “Thoughts on Being Well.” 24

of particular interest is Muhly’s deliberate pairing of certain instruments with specific characters.

In an interview for the live broadcast of Marnie at the Metropolitan Opera, Muhly stated that the

orchestra becomes a character and acts as an extension of the lies being told by the singers.30 This

pairing, along with other compositional elements, helps to expose the psyches of the characters

who demonstrate extreme complexity in their mental functions.

Marnie’s Mother: Edith Elmer

While Marnie’s mother, identified as Edith in the book, takes a backseat in the main plot,

she plays a very important role in Marnie’s development and is the reason for her compulsory

habits. Edith’s characterization in the book and film does differ, but some characteristics that

appear in both versions are her conservative nature, her religious convictions, and her

judgmental habits. Like Marnie, she seems to live in two separate worlds, one that affirms these

characteristics and one that goes against them. The scandalous circumstances surrounding her

pregnancy and the death of her infant son have a large impact on her actions, especially in how

she treats Marnie and the others around her.

In the book, Edith Elmer is loving toward Marnie but reserved. Marnie is aware that her

father passed and that she had a little brother who died in childbirth, but only remembers the

stories that Edith tells her. Edith is deeply religious, frugal, and socially conservative, and while

she is openly proud of her daughter she worries whenever Marnie mentions a man. She is against

men in general and takes pride in the fact that her daughter seems to have no interest in them, to

the point that when Marnie asks what she would think if she decided to get married, Edith

30 Nico Muhly, “Backstage at the Met with Host Anthony Roth Costanzo: Interview with Nico Muhly,” Interview by Anthony Roth Costanzo, The Met: Live in HD, November 10, 2018. http://metopera.org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=810004200517. 25

becomes uncomfortable and mildly angry. She also stresses the importance of morality, and

when Marnie is caught stealing at the age of ten she becomes hateful and increasingly angry.

Marnie worries that her mother would become enraged at the realization that her daughter has been supporting her using stolen money for years; however, she only began stealing in order to help Edith escape poverty after a health scare years earlier that she believed was made worse by her precarious socio-economic status.

The book implies that Edith’s past may have paved the way for the mental health

problems she faced later in life. In her younger years, Edith was beautiful and longed for love.

Her father was bitter from the war and highly religious and she, being the older sibling, took the

brunt of his poor treatment. She married and gave birth to Marnie, but when World War II broke out, her husband left for the war. Because of her longing for love and companionship, she became notorious for sleeping with soldiers during their time ashore and found herself pregnant.

Her neighbor, Lucy Nye, later notes that Edith didn’t seem to acknowledge what was going on in the evenings, let alone the fact that there was a baby on the way. Such denial may be evidence of dissociative states, a mental health symptom that her daughter would also face.

Throughout her childhood, Edith told Marnie that the baby died because of circumstances

completely separate from her. According to Edith, when a doctor was called to assist with the

birth, their low status and lack of money meant the doctor didn’t prioritize their call and arrived

after the baby had died. However, the last few chapters of the book reveal that Lucy delivered

the baby without a nurse or doctor and Edith began hemorrhaging. While Lucy went to get a

nurse, Edith killed the child and hid it, telling the nurse that she had a miscarriage. When the

baby was found, Edith was charged with murder, but the doctor whom she later blamed for the

death testified that she showed signs of what was then called Puerperal Insanity. 26

In the early twentieth century, Puerperal Insanity was understood as “a generic term used

to include all cases of mental derangement incident to pregnancy and its sequalae.”31 The

condition was a common diagnosis particularly in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth

centuries but does not appear in medical journals today. In addition, the language used in

describing this condition, especially considering its connection to childbirth, is notably gendered,

using outdated terms such as “hysteria” and “mania.” The fact that this term does not appear in

the opera may stem from the change in circumstance, but its omission also seems to serve

subconsciously as a way to undermine the gendered stereotypes of women and their purported

proclivity for hysteria as seen in the eyes of early twentieth-century doctors and psychologists.

In contrast to this rather fleshed out characterization of Edith in the book, she only appears in person twice in the opera; two other appearances take place as memories in Marnie’s mind. In the opera, Edith displays similar characteristics but is much crueler to Marnie.32 Instead

of a tardy doctor as in the novel, Edith blames the death of the baby on Marnie. Lucy later

reveals that Edith did this in order to avoid prison, seeing as Marnie was only a child and

therefore too young to be tried in a court of law. However, Edith also uses this as an excuse to be

vicious toward her daughter, judging her choices in clothes and hair, stating that she never did

anything for her, calling her a fool, and questioning her source of income. She states that Marnie

is “bad all through” and going to Hell, vocabulary which inserts a puritanical viewpoint that is

associated more with American culture in mid-twentieth century than the story’s setting in

England. In this adaptation, perhaps stemming from Hitchcock’s 1964 film, there is also the addition of a child who later reveals that in Edith’s final days she mistook him for her departed son.

31 Will Palmer, “Puerperal Insanity,” Medical News (1882-1905) 83, no. 10 (September 5, 1903): 439. 32 While Marnie’s mother is never specifically named in the opera, I will continue to refer to her as Edith for clarity. 27

Musically, Edith never sings an actual aria. She sings twice in dialogue, first when

Marnie comes home after leaving Crombie & Strutt and later when Lucy and Edith receive a letter from Marnie saying she won’t be home for a while because of a “surprising turn of fate”

(although she does not admit that this “turn” is her marriage to Mark). She appears as a memory twice as well. The first is while Marnie is at Mark’s house prior to their marriage, as a storm frightens her. Edith appears in the window but does not sing or say anything. The second appearance is in Dr. Roman’s office. After the psychiatrist asks Marnie what she thinks when he says ‘mother,’ she begins to remember the night her baby brother died. Edith appears in the vision and tells Marnie that she killed the baby and is going to hell. As with the entire opera, none of these scenes follow a standard aria or duet form, but seem to stay within the realm of dialogue in an accompanied recitative style. Her lines are marked by light chromaticism, frequent pitch repetition, and intervallic leaps that delve into and out of the lowest ranges of her contralto voice.

Edith is paired with a repeated viola figure as well as some thicker woodwind passages.

Notably, she is the only main character to be paired with a string instrument. In addition, the viola has a deeper sound than the violin, but a more unusual sound than the cello, making it a perfect pairing with Edith’s mostly minor and dissonant passages. The repeated figure in the viola appears prominently when she first enters in Act One and includes the technique of throwing the bow followed by an extended ricochet. The line then switches to a heavy use of dissonant double stops and a mostly stepwise motion with emphasis typically on the highest and lowest notes. This figure appears when she first enters and when she calls Marnie a fool, later when she tells the young boy what Marnie did, and notably in the final scene, after Edith has died. In this scene, Marnie tells Lucy she murdered her baby brother, to which Lucy replies “no” 28

(the only spoken word in the opera), followed immediately by the viola figure once before

everything is revealed.33 By looking at the instances when the viola appears, and particularly the ricochet, it is possible to read this recurring figure as a representation of the compulsive lie Edith tells herself. In an attempt to substantiate her claim that Marnie killed the child, Edith has had to manufacture a hatred for her own daughter and to an extent has started believing the lie herself.

Her belief that Marnie is “bad all through” is manifested in the viola melody that appears only

when she is speaking ill of Marnie or mentioning the murder of her son.

When she is not accompanied by the viola, Edith is accompanied most often by

woodwind instruments, matching Marnie’s instrumental pairing with the oboe and creating a

familial association through the orchestral texture. These figures are heard more often throughout

the opera and are more consonant and playful than the viola figure. In the scene where Marnie

remembers the night of her brother’s death, the viola does not play a prominent role, but there

are strings regularly creating either a drone or steadily moving notes underneath.34 In the

woodwinds, there is a melody reminiscent of the “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John” motive that

Marnie sang before her mother entered, and like Edith’s earlier figures they are mostly stepwise.

In this way, Edith’s music may be closely related to standard church music, but distorted through

minor tonalities, chromaticism, and dramatic leaps only during emotional or cruel moments.

While Edith does not appear in a large portion of the narrative in either the novel or the

opera, her influence is clearly evident in Marnie’s actions. In the book, Edith’s clear distaste for

men and her constant complaint that she is treated poorly because of her lack of wealth push

Marnie towards her aversion to touch and her desire to steal. Later, when Marnie realizes that her

mother was diagnosed with a form of insanity, she believes that she cannot be saved from the

33 Act II, Scene 8. 34 Act II, Scene 3. 29

problems she faces because she is crazy through heredity. In the opera, Edith’s constant assertion that Marnie is “bad all through” and her suspicion of Marnie’s relationship with men results in similar problems. Edith’s music can be heard to represent her dual nature: the demented and sinful represented by the distorted tonalities on the viola and the moral and religious represented by the woodwind figures and reference to hymns. Whether through heredity or negative influence, Edith’s actions push Marnie into a life of compulsive lying and stealing from which she is only able to free herself by coming to terms with the problems that her mother faced.

Marnie

At the end of the novel, Marnie’s realization of the true nature regarding her brother’s

death leads her to question the possibility of hereditary insanity. There is plenty of scientific

evidence to prove that mental illness can be passed down between generations. However many

of Marnie’s problems with mental health seem to stem more from the circumstances surrounding

her childhood, particularly her mother’s part in creating prejudices and fears, than from her

genetic makeup. Marnie occupies a majority of the plot not just through her role as the

protagonist, but also through her first-person narrative in the novel, which Wright and Muhly

attempted to emulate in creating the opera’s libretto, with a series of scene-linking arias that offer windows into Marnie’s mind.

In the book, Marnie is extremely smart and calculating. Although she comes from a poorer part of the country, her uncle sent her to school in order to learn elocution, meaning she was able to pass herself off as being from a higher level of s ociety. While Marnie had a few

bouts of theft in her younger years, the pattern of stealing from employers started only after her

mother was hospitalized. Edith complained about her treatment in the hospital, stating that she 30

was not prioritized or treated with respect because she did not have money. Marnie tells the

reader through her inner dialogue that she began stealing in order to keep her mother from being

poor. In fact, much of the money she steals goes towards keeping Edith comfortable and healthy

despite her leg injury and various other health issues.

Along with her proclivity for theft, Marnie also faces an extreme aversion to physical

touch. She is disgusted by men, despite the fact that they are drawn by her beauty. Marnie is

extremely careful not to start any personal relationships, whether romantic or friendly, in order to

avoid questions that may lead to accidentally revealing information or attempts to find her after

she has run away. She does not seem to care much for the frivolity of the people her age (which

in the novel is around 23), but whether this is due to a true dislike or just an attempt to stay away

from personal relationships is unclear. Whatever the case, Marnie often professes the feeling of

being an outsider both by the nature of what she does as well as her upbringing. It is during her

stay at Rutland’s that she breaks her rules. First and foremost, she becomes too personal with her coworkers and bosses. By attending the dance, parties at Terry’s house, and outings with coworkers and Mark, people become too connected to her and want to learn more about her as a person. This problem is augmented by the length of her employment—around seven months— which leads to the revelation of several identifying facts about her.

The biggest differences between Marnie’s characterization in the novel and in the opera are her dealings with mental health, specifically symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

While Marnie in the book obviously has some deep-seated issues with men, her issues do not appear to be as indicative of mental illness. In the novel, Marnie remembers nothing of the night that her brother died and mostly faces problems with men and compulsive lying. Marnie does have glimpses of moments in her childhood that she has since forgotten, particularly the cold 31

room, the ticking clock, and her mother screaming, but when she recalls these sensations, they

are more reflective than visceral, except for one of her visits to Dr. Roman. In the opera, Marnie

does not seem to remember even these small details on a regular basis, but they do appear when

she relives that night, seen twice in the production and brought on first by a thunderstorm35 and

later by Dr. Roman’s psychoanalytical tactics.36 These moments when she relives that night

seem to be symptomatic of PTSD, as do many of her other actions throughout the story.37

Having been linked by her mother to the actual act of murder may have caused a more

symptomatic and clear-cut example of PTSD in the opera. These more visceral reactions to

remembering her childhood, or better put, reliving moments of her childhood, may be linked to

the film, in which Marnie has similarly realistic flashbacks brought on by an association with the

color red.38

One notable difference between Marnie’s mental health issues and the tropes of mental

illness in past operas is the trajectory of her mental state. As discussed above, earlier operas tend

to depict mentally ill characters who experience a slow decline into madness brought on by a traumatic event that often takes place near the climax of the opera. In contrast, Marnie appears to be dealing with mental health issues from the beginning, stemming from a traumatic event which

35 Act I, Scene 8. 36 Act II, Scene 3. 37 Of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America substantial list of symptoms, Marnie also displays “spontaneous or cued recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive distressing memories of the traumatic events,” “flashbacks or other dissociative reactions in which the individual feels or acts as if the traumatic events are recurring,” “physiological reactions to reminders of the traumatic events,” “inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic events,” “persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world,” “markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities,” “feelings of detachment or estrangement from others,” and “reckless or self-destructive behavior.” Anxiety and Depression Association of America, “Symptoms of PTSD,” Accessed June 4, 2020, https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/symptoms. 38 The traumatic experience in the film involves Marnie witnessing the murder of a man and her dissociative states and involuntary memories are specifically connected to blood. This differs from either of the versions discussed in this thesis, as Marnie never actually witnesses the death of her brother and his strangulation negates any connection to blood and, by extension, the color red. 32 happened before the opera’s timeline, followed by a series of events which actually make her physical life more complicated, but her mental state more healthy. By breaking free of the lies she has told, she is able to reach a level of clarity and freedom that she has not known for a long time. In terms of her mental illness as manifested through kleptomania, we see that even before the truth about her mother is revealed, she finds herself unable to steal from the safe. Marnie is rooted more to reality by the first use of her real and legal name since she began stealing. In addition, her work with a psychoanalyst leads her to reassess the reality of her past and ultimately begin to heal from the trauma she experienced as a child. The revelation of her mother’s wrongdoing is but the final piece that helps her achieve freedom from the law as well as freedom from the illness that afflicts her mind.

Musically, Marnie’s material is indicative of this shift. In terms of instrument pairing,

Marnie is coupled with the oboe. This twinning is reminiscent of the instrumental pairing with flute found in mad scenes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the range of the oboe, while still quite high, dips into a lower register than the flute, mimicking the lower register of Marnie’s mezzo soprano voice. The opera opens with a single oboe note and a set which is dark except for muted spotlight on Marnie sitting at a desk. This is the first instance of a prominent oboe representing Marnie during breaks in her singing. The oboe continues to function in this manner throughout the opera, specifically becoming pronounced when Mark and

Terry are speaking with and/or attempting to overpower her. When the oboe plays during

Marnie’s lines, it tends to emerge from the orchestral texture as she tells and/or reinforces her lies, either mimicking what the character sings or playing in response to something she has said.

It does not appear to function other than to bolster what she is saying, but it does seem to represent her cunning ability to create fiction in order to get what she wants. 33

In addition to the oboe, Marnie seems to be often accompanied by woodwinds in general,

which in turn are periodically accompanied by static string movement. One of the most notable

instances of such accompaniment can be seen in the opening and closing figures of the opera. In

an interview for the Met, Muhly said that this woodwind figure, which consists of upper-register

wind instruments flitting about in an almost bird-like lilt, represents Marnie’s freedom.39 In the

beginning, that freedom manifests itself in keeping herself isolated from people and the burdens

of her past by changing her identity. The figure is interrupted by the rest of the orchestra quite

often and never quite establishes its prominence, reflecting the fact that this freedom is not real

and can be undermined at any second. By the end, however, this same figure becomes the most

prominent musical motive, as confession allows for her freedom. It is not interrupted by the brass

or any other instrumental group and is only accompanied by light static string chords that almost

blend in through similarity of register, representing a truer or at least more pure freedom.

The attempt to maintain the first-person narrative of the book can be seen through the

structure of Marnie’s vocal lines. Instead of using the more standard form of arias to express

Marnie’s subjectivity, Muhly and Wright decided to use what they called “links,” which are short

interjections of Marnie’s inner thoughts that often help to transition from scene to scene.40 These act less as moments of action within the plot and more as moments of reflection, reacting to the events which she has just encountered and considering either her best move or her ultimate fate.

Stylistically, Marnie’s lines are quite difficult to follow mostly owing to the fact that they are made up of jagged, extreme intervallic leaps. This is much more prominent in the links than in the dialogue but can be heard throughout the opera until the final scene. After Lucy has revealed

39 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie,” YouTube, October 24, 2018. 40 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie.” 34

the truth, Marnie reflects on her actions and the reasons she committed those crimes. For the first time, her line is predominantly consonant and conjunct, repeatedly starting with a leap of an octave, but proceeding in mostly stepwise motion for the rest of the phrase. In an interview,

Muhly specifically cites this musical change as a conscious effort to show the shift that this truth incites in Marnie’s mind.41

Whereas the book and the opera end similarly, Marnie’s mental state at the end of the

opera differs in tone. Marnie feels a relative freedom after learning of her mother’s lies, but in

the novel this realization actually leads to more questioning and anxiety on Marnie’s part. While

she works through these issues for a great deal of the final few chapters, there is never a sense of

giddy freedom such as that seen in the closing moments of Muhly’s opera. To put it more

plainly, Graham’s Marnie is freed of guilt, but not of anxiety, while Muhly and Wright’s Marnie

experiences catharsis, feeling both freed from guilt and a sense of relief. In her penultimate line,

Marnie states “I’ll be there for myself, that’s all I know for now.”42 Through this line, we can see a reflection of the relatively modern mentality of a work in progress while dealing with mental illness: there is a happiness in getting better, but always more work to be done.

Marnie’s musical material is indicative of her varying personality, her psychological relationship with her mother, and her slow healing process. The jagged intervallic patterns of

Marnie’s vocal lines moving to a more simplistic pattern show a major shift directly following the revelation of her Mother’s lies. The use of strings to regularly accompany the more prominent woodwind motives and textures shows a connection between Marnie, who is paired with the oboe, and Edith, who is paired with the viola, possibly emphasizing the mother’s

41 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie.” 42 Nico Muhly, Marnie, Act II, Scene 8, Metropolitan Opera and the Met Opera Chorus, Robert Spano cond. Performed November 10, 2018. Metropolitan Opera New York: Met Live in HD, 2019. Met Opera on Demand, 2 hrs. 22 min. 35

influence on her daughter’s ultimate battle with mental illness. Marnie’s musical links help to

reinforce the first-person narrative of the story and also serve to emphasize her inner thoughts

and pains. She also departs from the operatic mad woman trope by not having a typical mad aria.

Most prominently, the transformation of her freedom figure, played by high-registered

woodwinds and used during important moments in the plot, shows an ascent from mental illness

into clarity that enforces modern-day views of mental healing through a mid-century story which

originally gave the protagonist a more bleak outlook on life.

Shadow Marnies

One notable element of the opera that for obvious reasons does not appear in either the

book or the film is Muhly’s inclusion of the “Shadow Marnies.” In interviews, Muhly states that

this concept came to him from the beginning as a small choir which represents Marnie’s inner

thoughts, but who sing in a very different style, one athat is lmost reminiscent of early music. In the production, this semi-chorus manifests itself in the form of four women who all look exactly like Marnie (save different color outfits) and who are seen only by her. Vocally, the women sing

in straight tone and frequently hold notes in the manner of drones, techniques Muhly described

as “[singing] in a very abstract way.”43 The Shadow Marnies go back and forth between acting as Marnie’s confident inner dialogue and her internalized guilt, sometimes joining the full chorus

during moments of intense grief or suffering for Marnie. This function contrasts with the oboe,

which represents Marnie’s quickly-spun lies and her knowledge that what she is saying is fiction.

Whereas instruments may lie, these voices speak truthfully.

43 Muhly, “Backstage at the Met with Host Anthony Roth Costanzo: Interview with Nico Muhly.” 36

These visions appear most often during Marnie’s links, helping her to commit theft,

suffering with her through her vision in Dr. Roman’s office, and representing the possibilities for

her new identities as she plans her next escape. They also appear quite often during scenes where

the chorus is on stage, including after Marnie’s theft from Crombie & Strutt has been discovered

and during the party in Act II. In both of these scenes, Marnie is confronted with her guilt as well

as the judgement of those around her. In an interview, Muhly stated that the chorus was meant to

go back and forth from being people at the party to manifestations of her guilt.44 By pairing the

Shadow Marnies with the chorus during these important moments, Muhly is distinguishing the chorus as Marnie’s inner guilt and shame as opposed to the people actually judging her. Such shifts also demonstrate the tendency for people to internalize how society feels about them, seen through Marnie’s fear that every action elicits attention and suspicion from the people who surround her.

While these visions act mainly as Marnie’s inner thoughts and dialogue, there is one moment where they temporarily break from this function. During the scene in Dr. Roman’s office, the Marnies walk across the stage one by one, sit on the chair and pantomime talking to the psychoanalyst, and then leave the stage as the next one arrives.45 This sequence shows the

passing of time, but also leads to a more prominent departure from their unrealistic existence. As the main Marnie sits on the couch, another comes out and takes her place as she stands by, free associating in her mind. Her actual dialogue is indicated when both the real Marnie and her shadow respond together to the psychoanalyst, showing that what the real Marnie has been saying was all in her head. However, this is put into question as the final shadow Marnie sits on the couch, while what the audience has come to know as the actual Marnie stands by and

44 Muhly, “Backstage at the Met with Host Anthony Roth Costanzo: Interview with Nico Muhly.” 45 Act II, Scene 3. 37

responds to Dr. Roman’s questions. As one can see, it is the real Marnie that is acting as her

inner thoughts in this moment, calling into question just what she is actually saying to Dr.

Roman and what she is keeping to herself when she remembers the night her brother died.

Before Dr. Roman and the real Marnie enter, the music consists mostly of repetitive string

figures that create an uneasy atmosphere while solo winds pass off playing jagged and slow-

moving melodies which shift when a new Marnie appears. In this way, the music here shows the repetitiveness of the sessions and her constant stream of lies as she resists Dr. Roman’s

questioning.

These visions become important manifestations of Marnie’s mental illness and notably

disappear altogether, along with the chorus, in the final scene of the opera. In a way, they

represent her subconscious and its multi-faceted nature, torn between any number of emotions

and multiple self-made personalities she can pull out for her next escape. They connect Marnie’s

insecurities to the outside world and the people she interacts with, making her more paranoid as she enters society as Mark’s wife. Ultimately, they act as friend and confidante in moments of

power and self-assuredness and as foe in times of doubt and, significantly, they disappear during moments of clarity, when for the first time Marnie is able to see a way out of the mental illness which has afflicted her for nearly twenty years of her life.

Conclusions: The Role of Psychoanalysis

In Act Two of the opera, Marnie attends several sessions with a psychoanalyst at Mark’s

request.46 Her husband is concerned for her, but also wants to determine why she is averse to

physical contact, especially from him. In the sessions, Marnie works her hardest to reveal as little

46 Act II, Scene 3. 38 as possible about herself and her past, despite the dedicated efforts of Dr. Roman. While the novel depicts this psychoanalyst as a man who has a genuine interest in Marnie’s case, the shortening of these sessions in the context of the opera leads to a character who merely seems to be following a stereotypical line of thought, one which in this case happens to be highly gendered.

The psychoanalytical methods used by Dr. Roman in both the book and opera are clearly linked to Freudian theories. His tactics of free association and dream analysis ultimately bring out the subconscious memory of the night Marnie’s baby brother was killed. Although she does not remember exactly what happened, she begins to relive the circumstances, including the feeling of being cold, the cries of her mother as the baby was born, and other small details pertaining to that night. In the opera, Marnie recalls her mother berating her for killing the child, commenting “got to be true if mummy says it.” While Marnie’s recollection of these memories is only part of a larger dramatic arc of her mental illness, it informs the way her mother approaches the care and upbringing of her daughter, which ultimately affects Marnie’s actions as an adult.

Muhly, who began work on the opera in 2014, may have been drawn to such topics because of his own journey with mental illness. Marnie, who is flawed by her psychological state and her compulsive thievery, presents an exceptionally interesting opportunity to explore mental health within an operatic context. Showcasing not only a character who faces the challenges of mental illness, but also the roundabout way that she attains a sense of freedom, demonstrates a dedication to portraying topics that are particularly poignant in our own time. Instead of the descent into madness that was so typical of women in opera going back hundreds of years, this character slowly gains clarity throughout the terrible things that have happened to her. However, 39

many reviewers felt that Marnie’s journey with mental illness failed to rid itself of the gendered

operatic tropes that haunt earlier works depicting mental illness in women.

In the psychoanalysis scene, Dr. Roman asks Marnie what comes to mind when she hears

the word “mother,” what comes to mind when she thinks of childbirth, and in a particularly

poignant moment, “did you love the woman who gave birth to you?” Before waiting to hear her

response to this question, the psychoanalyst follows up with “imagine a child who feels for you

the way you felt for her.” These and many of his other queries bring into question the gendered aspects of the interaction. Psychoanalysis as a practice has been critiqued by many feminist writers as sexist, including Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan and Kate Millett.47 The tactics

used by Dr. Roman play directly into this sexism, which was largely based on Freud’s belief that

women only retained their femininity through taking care of their husbands and children. This

becomes clear when the doctor asks Marnie “isn’t it natural for a woman to think about

childbirth?” While the character presented in the book was typical of a psychoanalyst, the

version of Dr. Roman in the opera depicts a much more sexist and narrow-minded specialist who

cares more about why Marnie does not fit the standard ideals of a woman in the Freudian realm

than an interest in curing her of her issues with PTSD and kleptomania. Of course, condensing a

story such as this makes it difficult not to rely on some level of stereotyping (and, in this case,

sexism). Indeed, this sexism actually depicts a past that has fallen by the wayside in a more progressive and gender equality-fueled world, paving the way for further discussion of gender roles and the value, or lack thereof, of gender norms.

While this could have opened a door to an interpretation of the story that changed

Marnie’s outlook from entrapment by, and later acceptance of, her husband to gaining

47 Louis Menand, “Why Freud Survives,” The New Yorker, August 21, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/why-freud-survives. 40

independence, the opera chose a more standard, and one could say romantically-driven, route.

While Dr. Roman asks Marnie a series of gendered questions, she begins to ruminate on her

feelings for Mark, thinking to herself “he ought to ask me if I love the man I married,” and “why

can’t I stop thinking about my husband night and day.” Although Marnie does not end up with

Mark at the end of the novel or opera, this and other moments soften Mark’s wrongdoings from

Marnie’s perspective, leading to a more romantically-driven moment of clarity when, in one of

the final scenes, she asks why she stayed with him if he could not turn her over to the police. In

the book, Marnie deliberates whether or not to return to Mark in the end, either to explain her

actions or to live with him as a platonic companion. While this is not fleshed out as thoroughly in

the opera, her questioning of why she stayed with him implies that she has had a similar change

of heart. However, the inclusion of Marnie’s rambling thoughts about Mark during her therapy

sessions shows that she is rethinking her relationship much sooner than in the novel. Such a shift

implies that she has grown to either love him or at least care for him, despite his lecherous acts.

This and other scenes drew criticism from reviewers. Although Muhly and Wright

attempted to treat Marnie’s psychological state and inner thoughts carefully, many critics

believed that the opera did not do full justice to Marnie’s mental illness. The focus becomes

more about her interaction with the two men than her change of heart and mind, and the tough

moments in the opera were not treated as sensitively as many thought they should have been.

Referencing the psychoanalysis scene specifically, James Jorden of The Observer saw the

sequence as comical: “Marnie’s ‘breakthrough’ happens in so brisk and so offhand a manner you

can’t help but giggle: after five minutes of Freudian analysis she’s already seeing flashbacks of

her mother turning tricks with sailors.”48 This review and many others demonstrate that while

48 James Jorden, “Nico Muhly Finds a Compelling Muse in the Met Opera’s ‘Marnie,’ but his Score Can’t Match her Drama,” The Observer, October 22, 2018. 41

Muhly’s interest in and dedication to depicting various forms of Marnie’s inner thoughts and psychoses were clear, the treatment of her slow ascent to a place of clarity and calm, both musically and within the libretto, fell victim to many of the gendered tropes that have maintained their place in opera since the seventeenth century. 42

CHAPTER II. SEXUAL POLITICS AND PROBLEMS

The Hunter and Hunted: Animal Imagery in Marnie

Throughout both novel and opera, one element that becomes quite noticeable is the use of animal imagery. In both mediums, Marnie is described, by herself and by others, in animalistic terms, at various moments being compared to a rabbit, a dog, and a moth among others. Such comparisons draw connections between Marnie’s mental illness and the pressure she feels from both the prospect of arrest and men’s sexual objectification of her. These instances of animal imagery appear in dramatically significant places, all of which are directly related to Marnie’s fear of capture, aversion to sex, and mental illness.

The first and most prominent example of animal imagery is demonstrated through

Marnie’s feeling of entrapment: by Mark, by the prospect of being caught, by Terry, et cetera.

The first instance of animal imagery in the novel appears directly after Mark finds Marnie following her theft of Rutland’s. To add to the severity of the moment, he also calls her Marnie

Elmer, her real name, as opposed to the fake one that she used while at the company. She is forced to tell him about her theft and her past life, but still does not want him to know everything and so keeps the information about her previous thefts and her family history to herself. In this moment, she says “I was cornered—like a rat in a coal bunker.”1 However, in an attempt to save herself, she says that one of the reasons she stole was because of the growing friendship between herself and Mark. He takes this as a sign that she has romantic feelings for him and admits that he loves her. In order to preserve her story and keep Mark from going to the police, Marnie has to feign romantic interest in him, but tries to convince him that they should not marry because

1 Winston Graham, Marnie (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1961), 95. 43 she is a liar and a thief. When he dismisses this argument, she realizes “He had me in a corner, and I wasn’t even like that rat—I couldn’t bite him.”2

Another instance where animal imagery appears is when Marnie is sexually pressured by

Mark. During their honeymoon, Marnie tries to discuss her aversion to touch with Mark, saying that she finds sex degrading because “It’s…animal.”3 In rebuttal, Mark says that humans are, in part, animals and says that Marnie is too beautiful to be afraid of sex, comparing her to a butterfly that will not come out of its cocoon. Through this interaction, it is possible to read the animalistic nature of human beings as something that Marnie fears, appearing first in her capture and now again in the pressure she is feeling from her husband.

A third situation in which animal imagery appears is during Marnie’s sessions with Dr.

Roman, the psychoanalyst. During their meetings, he often asks Marnie to free-associate and talk about things that come to mind when he says certain words or asks certain questions. During one of her sessions, she speaks of a dream that she made up to try and get through the session without revealing anything. She says: “I told him I dreamt I was the third largest salmon in the world and that I was swimming round in an enormous glass bowl and that outside the bowl were a whole lot of men trying to reach inside and catch me but I kept slipping through their fingers.”4

This is the only instance, in the novel, where the animal imagery depicts Marnie as triumphing over those that seek to capture her, but as it is stated she is simultaneously trapped in a bowl.

This example, however, is completely fabricated. Marnie created the scenario to offer Dr. Roman examples of what she calls “gorgeous symbolism.”5 In reference to Mark’s concern with her aversion to touch, Marnie could be suggesting that she feels trapped by objectification, but so far

2 Graham, Marnie, 96. 3 Graham, Marnie, 115. 4 Graham, Marnie, 202. 5 Graham, Marnie, 202. 44

has been able to escape capture. She does not indicate that this has any factual connection to her

life, but the fact that such symbolism is mentioned shows that perhaps subconsciously, even

when she is attempting to create falsehood, the pressure she faces is prevalent in her mind. While

this does not clearly link her issues of mental health together with this use of animal imagery,

there is one instance later where this is the case.

After all has been revealed and Marnie’s world has been turned upside-down, she begins

to worry that the mental health issues she faces are bred into her through heredity. With her

dwindling emotions and lack of mental clarity, she states: “my life had been turned inside out

like some gigantic awful conjuring trick, and I was like an animal turned physically disgustingly

inside out, walking the wrong way, looking cross eyed, split down the middle of my soul.”6 In this moment of confusion, anger, and despair, Marnie still identifies with the animalistic side, but this time it is a reflection of the mental state she is in after her conceptions of everything she has known and done are questioned. In addition, the fear that her mental health issues stemmed from her mother and not her conscious actions implies that her thieving and lying are out of her control, things that she cannot escape and that make her an inherently bad and insane human being as opposed to someone who can work to be better.

The opera uses the animal imagery employed in the book more freely. In addition to the situations mentioned above, the chorus also describes Mary Holland (one of Marnie’s fictitious identities) as a “dim little rabbit, shy little mouse” after they discover she has stolen from

Crombie & Strutt. They also make passing references to animal imagery throughout the production, and the aforementioned instances—stated by Marnie as part of her inner monologue—begin early in the plot, highlighting her cunning ability to get away from her

6 Graham, Marnie, 250. 45

hunters, but later shift to a commentary on her capture. A notable addition is the inclusion of

scenes with both Mark and Terry where animal imagery is employed. Mark compares Marnie to

a deer that he frightened in the woods, saying that it reminded him of how she flinches at his

touch and averts her eyes when he looks at her.7 Terry, on the other hand, uses animal imagery

during his poignant aria following the fox hunt to continue the dialogue that is begun with

Marnie’s panic at the helpless fox.8 Continuing the metaphor of Marnie as the fox, Terry sings,

“I’ll hunt you down for as long as you live…I’ll see you torn apart by the hounds of truth.” Both instances clearly implicate these men in the pressure that Marnie faces in society, both on the basis of sex and on the basis of justice.

The fox hunt is the culmination of the animal imagery in both novel and opera. In the

novel, the hunt takes place during the span of a day and several foxes are chased throughout. The

first fox is able to lose the hounds and humans, and Marnie internally congratulates the fox and

advises it not to leave its hole, saying “don’t be a fool and give those hounds a chance to show how smart they are.”9 The second fox is not so lucky, having not been as careful. This can be

seen as a comparison to Marnie’s situation in that she had previously been overly careful, but

admitted to making questionable choices as Mary Taylor which ultimately led to her demise.

Marnie watches as the fox tires out and realizes that there is no hope, speeding forward to try and

save him but only getting close enough to see the action more vividly. The group goes out on a

third hunt, during which Marnie has a moment of panic and instead of chasing the hounds and

fox she runs off, trying to escape the feelings she is suddenly experiencing. She openly begins to

equate her situation with the fox’s situation and reflects on the demented nature of human beings,

7 Act II, Scene 2. 8 Act II, Scene 5. 9 Graham, Marnie, 212. 46 commenting that no matter what she had done, she had not killed an innocent creature. She states, “I fancied that, if they knew the truth that I preyed on them, just the way a fox’ll prey on chickens, stealing a few pounds from their banks and their offices, they’d just as quickly turn and hunt me.”10 She reflects on her position compared to theirs, saying “Prison was allowed but they didn’t consult me. Hunting was allowed but they didn’t consult the fox.”11

In the opera, Marnie’s connection with the fox is seemingly much more emotional, as evidenced through her desperate calls to save the fox as she realizes what is about to happen.

Unlike in the book, she does not appear to have a moment of clarity in connection with the fox, but simply seems to empathize with the innocent creature as it is being hunted. Notably, both

Marnie and the crowd around her talk about the fox using feminine pronouns, unlike in the book, where Marnie uses masculine pronouns to describe it. Instead of escaping from the scene, Forio

(her horse) bolts while she races to save the fox and she is unable to control him, leading to the horse’s death and Mark’s injury. This scene shows just how trapped Marnie feels by the men surrounding her and the possibility of capture, whether that point is clear to her or simply comes from a place of unrealized empathy.

The animal imagery present throughout the novel and opera is indicative of Marnie’s feelings of capture and torment. The comparisons either begin once Mark has caught her or shift from cunning escape to entrapment once she is with him. Mark and Terry’s use of this dialogue as well, present in the book but expanded in the opera, mark them as the personifications of this generalized pressure. Inwardly Marnie is pressured by her past as a thief and the danger of being brought to justice as a result of Mark and Terry’s prying. Outwardly, as a beautiful woman in mid-twentieth-century society, she is sexualized and objectified, even by the men who seem to

10 Graham, Marnie, 214. 11 Graham, Marnie, 215. 47

care for her. In this way, the animal imagery serves as metaphor for the sexual politics of the

opera, which—like so many other operas—positions the male characters as socially and dramatically dominant.

Toxic Masculinity: Character Analyses

Throughout the conception and performance of her criminal schemes, Marnie keeps

herself detached from the people that she works for and interacts with, knowing that even the

smallest bit of cinformation dan h lea er former employers to her, as well as any men who have

found themselves smitten with the beautiful but elusive thief. Mark and Terry are the first men to really break through this hard shell and manage to find out private information about her, despite her well-spun lies. While both men are persistent, Marnie admits to several missteps and

moments when she departs from her strict rules that allowed the men to let their feelings and

investment in her go too far. Referring also to Dawn Witherbie, her coworker and friend, she

states, “In a way it was rather sad that Mary Taylor wouldn’t ever see Mark Rutland again…And

then there was Terry too—and Dawn. They’d all somehow got themselves into three-

dimensional figures, not just cutouts any more; and they stuck in your memory.”12

While working in Barnet, Marnie allowed herself to open up and become involved in a way that became dangerous, leading to her demise. To make matters worse, she found herself in the middle of a bitter rivalry between Mark and Terry, putting her at even more risk. Through her actions, Marnie becomes not only an object of desire for these two men, but also an object of war. In the novel, Mark Rutland and Terry Holbrook are cousins andf their amilial relationship is

separated by several parties. In the opera, on the other hand, while the rivalry does not appear as

12 Graham, Marnie, 75. 48

viscerally, the animosity is sharpened by the shift in relationship from cousins to brothers and the

addition of a motherly figure who acts as a catalyst for drama, chastising one brother for his lack

of qualities that the other happens to possess.

Through this rivalry we see very clear instances of what is now called toxic masculinity.

This term widely refers to the idea that men are pressured to conform to certain ideals of

masculinity, most prominently being tough and not showing emotion, and this gender

expectation can manifest negatively through sexual harassment and violence. The term became

particularly prominent in 2018 during the height of the #MeToo movement, when issues of

sexual violence were covered extensively by the media. In 2018, the American Psychological

Association released its first set of guidelines on how to deal with patients who try to align with

“traditional masculinity ideology.” The APA discussed the implantation of toxic masculinity in

the mind, saying “the socialization of masculine ideals starts at a young age and defines ideal

masculinity as related to toughness, stoicism, heterosexism, self-sufficient attitudes and lack of emotional sensitivity”13 The fact that this information comes from a psychological association

demonstrates that toxic masculinity is effectively a men’s mental health issue. In this way, it is very possible to state that all of the main characters in Marnie deal with issues of mental health, but in the process of presenting themselves as masculine, the male characters simply write off these traits as tough, powerful, and reasonable. To go even farther, it is easy to see that the gendered aspects discussed in chapter one, including emotionality and lack of reason, are shameful when seen in a male character and therefore can lead men to overcompensate for their lack of perceived masculinity.

13 American Psychological Association, “Harmful Masculinity and Violence: Understanding the Connection and Approaches to Prevention,” September 2018. https://www.apa.org/pi/about/newsletter/2018/09/harmful-masculinity. 49

Such aspects can be seen from two different sides in the characters of Mark and Terry.

They display elements of toxic masculinity within their own worlds, but also in reacting to their

bitter rivalry. Both characters show elements of vulnerability, present in Mark’s longing for

Marnie and in Terry’s insecurity over a large birthmark that covers part of his forehead.14 Their

mother’s interference only serves to heighten the tension between the two and culminates in a

fight, evidence of the outcomes of their “traditional masculinity ideology.”

Mark’s toxic masculinity stems from an overcompensation for his more emotional and

romantic side. He feels deep pain from the death of his first wife and true love for Marnie, a love

that he believes to be reciprocated. In this way, his character displays the stereotypical

characteristics of female operatic characters. When this love is thrown back in his face during the

honeymoon, Mark resorts to acts of violence in order to show his power over Marnie. Terry, on

the other hand, shows a more standard form of toxic masculinity. Due to the prominent

birthmark on his face he feels insecurity,15 but showing such things in an emotional way

undermines what he believes is masculine. Instead he speaks of this mark, as well as his family’s

dislike of him, with anger and overcompensates for his feelings of inadequacy by acting in a

sexually predatory manner to many of the women around him. In turn, their mother plays on

these insecurities of masculinity by telling Mark that he is too nice and lacks business acumen,

and later telling Terry that he has disgraced the family after their fight at the party. Both men

clearly mask their insecurities behind a tough or violent layer, much to the detriment of Marnie’s

future.

14 In the novel this birthmark appears on his neck, which he covers by keeping his hair long. 15 This insecurity is also manifested in his casting as a countertenor. In an opera where most of the men have lower voices and even then tenors sing in a moderate range, writing Terry’s parts in a range that more closely matches the women on stage helps to highlight his feeling of being an outsider and his feelings of not being masculine enough. 50

As with Marnie and Edith, Mark and Terry are represented by specific instruments within

the orchestral texture. Both their particular instruments, as well as the atmosphere created by the

orchestra during their dialogue, come from the brass family, a group of instruments often associated with masculine qualities in contrast to Marnie’s woodwind pairing and Edith’s string pairing. The struggle between these timbres can be heard from the beginning of the opera, when

Marnie’s freedom figure in the woodwinds is interrupted by a jagged and leaping figure in the brass.

While Marnie’s mother has a severe impact on the trajectory of her daughter’s plans and carefully thought-out actions, Mark and Terry disrupt this trajectory by inserting themselves into her process and refusing to move on when she tries to leave. While their desires present themselves early on, her overly lengthy stay of seven months gives their feelings time to develop more than she ever allowed her other attempted suitors to go, spelling trouble for the calculated and exacting protagonist. Their actions toward her are despicable, but the audience is left to wonder if their interruptions of her system were not ultimately the push Marnie needed to get out of a cycle of lies and deceit that she longed to rid herself of in the same way she rid herself of the anger and pain surrounding her mother’s lies.

Mark

Of the two main male characters, Mark is perhaps more dangerous to Marnie’s well-

being. While he clearly professes a deep-seated love for her, he has misconstrued his love as

justification for his predatory and controlling actions later in the story. As a result, Marnie is

never quite sure what Mark will do, or has the ability to do, and always feels on thin ice when 51 around him. His kindness, in addition to his love, means he does not see just how despicable his actions are and fancies himself as an aid to Marnie’s recovery from whatever is ailing her.

In the book, Mark is a quiet and reserved character. He served in the Navy until his father died, at which point he returned to the firm to make sure his family was not unceremoniously cut out of the business. (All this took place around two years before Marnie began her employment at the company.) He is known to be nice but is regarded as sad and lonely following the death of his wife, Estelle. He originally shows little personal interest in Marnie, although he later reveals that the directors had planned to hire another woman who had more qualifications for the job, but that Mark pushed them to hire Marnie instead. After a few short conversations at the office Mark makes several attempts to connect with her, including showing up to a rose show that he bought her a ticket for, staffing her to come to his house for a review of some programs, and finally taking her to the racetrack after he learns that she loves horses. Each of these interactions result in the revelation of personal histories, his true and hers false, which lead him to believe that their similar pasts connect them on a deeper level.

When Marnie finally leaves, taking over 1,000 pounds with her, Mark discovers her theft and fronts the money so that no one will know her crime. He then sets about finding her by the one personal fact she let slip during their outing to the racetrack. Once successful, he forces her to return the money and continue working for a short period until they announce their engagement. On their honeymoon, Marnie’s attempts to avoid sleeping with her new husband at first are successful, but when she is forced to tell him that she never loved him he becomes angry and rapes her. The following day she attempts suicide by drowning herself in the ocean, but he saves her and they have a physical altercation. 52

After returning from their honeymoon, Mark appears more kind and trusting, but Marnie

worries that at any moment he could snap like he did on their honeymoon. He implores her to

visit a psychoanalyst in order to assess some of the issues she has with intimacy, both physical

and emotional. After Mr. Strutt from Crombie & Strutt arrives at a party held by the family and

recognizes her, Mark begins to make plans behind her back to deal with her past, later stating

that he intended to tell her about the options once he had a full idea of the circumstances each

one would bring about. Marnie plans to run away, fearing that all his solutions would result in

possible jail time. After he is injured at the hunt, Marnie appears initially to have no intent to

return to him and he does not appear in the rest of the novel.

Like Marnie, Mark is very calculating and thoroughly thinks out the moves he makes before performing them. In the intermittent time between her capture and their marriage, Marnie comments, “every now and then, just when you thought he was being rather stupid about something, he’d say something that suddenly showed he was still a jump ahead of you, and that was what I liked least of all. I could have managed a man who was really dumb. But Mark I

could never be sure of.”16 His nature leads Marnie to constantly feel as if one misstep could seal her fate, and she must watch her steps even more than she did when she was acting as a thief. He does appear to truly love her, and even says that he loved her from the moment that he first met her, but does not trust her and does not act in an overly caring or trustworthy way. He appears to be personally insulted by her lies, even before she admits that she never loved him and just made it up to try and save herself. Furthermore, Mark tends to question many of Marnie’s conceptions about the way things work, specifically in regard to sex and love. Throughout their many conversations during the honeymoon Mark tries to downplay or dismiss Marnie’s feelings (what

16 Graham, Marnie, 98. 53 is today known as gaslighting) when she talks about her fear of physical intimacy, trying to undermine her belief that it is animalistic and degrading and using logic that attempts to force her out of the structures her mother instilled with her own fear of sex. All in all, Mark comes off as a brusque, at times hot-tempered, and arrogant character who likely garners relatively little sympathy to modern-day readers, although he may have seemed quite ordinary to people in the

1960s (aside from his act of sexual assault).

Mark in the opera is much more loving toward Marnie. He shows some recognition of her from the beginning, as in this version they met while she was employed at Crombie & Strutt, and displays an open interest in her from her first days at the office. The three instances of their meeting outside of the office are blended together into one scene which takes place at his house.17 Here they talk about horses, as they did at the rose show, reminisce on their departed spouses (hers fictitious), as they did in his house, and ultimately kiss, as they did the night that he took her to the races. He is much more trusting and comes off as a hopeless, doe-eyed romantic.

While in the book Mark rapes her out of anger, lust, and extreme entitlement, the operatic Mark is quickly swayed by Marnie’s screams and stops before carrying out his lecherous actions.

Later, sitting in a hospital bed after being injured at the hunt, he asks with hurt in his voice whether any part of their love was true.18 In the final scene, he asks Marnie if she will return to him when she gets out of prison. Unlike the in-love but unfeeling Mark in the book, this version shows a more humanized and considerate side, despite his attempt at sexual assault and his still- present attempts to gaslight Marnie. Throughout every attempt to connect with Marnie on a romantic level he is met with resistance, and becomes a more sympathetic character than in the

17 Act I, Scene 8. 18 Act II, Scene 6. 54

book, meant to show that he has made errors in judgement and is not a good person, but is also

not a monster or a villain.

Mark’s music tends to be simple and atmospheric, perhaps mimicking the normalcy that

Marnie associated with him especially in the beginning. The part is written for a baritone and his vocal lines are mostly set syllabically. He often repeats the same note several times before moving on to a new one, and when he does have leaps they are often simple intervals like thirds, octaves, and sometimes arpeggios. Instrumentally, Mark is paired with the trombone. However,

unlike Marnie, Edith, and Terry, the instrument does not appear to act in the same way as the

other pairings. Instead of mimicking Mark’s vocal lines or pairing with him exactly, the

trombone is often used to create either a powerful or ominous atmosphere, appearing in scenes

where he or his influence is important and manifesting in held notes in the low brass that create

an ominous sound. The moments when the trombone directly matches him are few, but they

indicate specific instances of hurt and lust; in other words, moments where his toxic masculinity

affects his actions and decisions. The first direct pairing happens when he catches Marnie

stealing from his office and asks, “how could you do this to me?”19 Such pairing indicates his

concern for what he believed to be love, not for the theft of his family’s company. In several

instances his lines are directly followed by stingers in the brass. Two such moments occur first

after he effectually gives her an ultimatum, saying “would you rather I call the police,”20 and the

second directly after he reveals that he knew she was the same person as Mary Holland, the

woman he met at Crombie & Strutt.21 These brass stingers in a way represent Mark’s

interruption of Marnie’s tried and true process and how this ultimately affects her.

19 Act I, Scene 9. 20 Act I, Scene 9. 21 Act I, Scene 11. 55

While Mark is present in many scenes, the two moments when he occupies the dramatic

foreground are his attempted rape of Marnie in the final scene of Act One and his effort to

smooth things over in the beginning of Act Two. In the first of these two scenes, Mark and

Marnie are in their room on a ship during their honeymoon.22 Mark stares at Marnie as she sits on the edge of the bed, nervously looking around the room and messing with the ring she now wears. After Mark admits that he recognized Marnie and hired her because he was interested in her, even though he knew she would do the same thing to him, he begins to ask her about her past: how many crimes she has committed, was her husband real, what about her parents, and finally “what’s your real name?” He then begins to touch her, which she openly shrinks from.

She reveals that Terry kissed her, which angers him, and then in the heat of argument tells him that she only said she loved him because he threatened her. He becomes angry and describes the night that he caught her from his point of view, saying he “spied on [her] like a voyeur” and that her theft didn’t make him mad, but actually in a way intensified his lust for her. He tries to rape her, but she screams no. He stops and lets her go and she runs to the bathroom, cutting her wrist with a piece of broken glass.

In terms of the music, as Mark questions Marnie in the beginning of this scene the orchestra becomes more agitated. This texture builds up as Mark shifts towards Marnie on the bed and then cuts off completely as he asks for her real name. This build-up followed by silence marks the importance of both his physical move towards her as well as his growing knowledge about her real life, symbolically breaking down the walls that Marnie so painstakingly built around herself. The orchestra does not return to the texture until Marnie tells Mark not to touch her.

22 Act I, Scene 11. 56

Mark’s music here differs greatly from the rest of the opera. In this scene, the trombone pairs with him most closely and he has more instances of melismatic singing. Twice Mark departs from his syllabic lines to perform two words that are drawn out. The first instance of these two shifts happen when Marnie says that sex is animal, to which Mark responds with “we can despise the mud that makes us human or exalt in it,” drawing out the word “exalt.” He then sings, “try exalting in it for a change,” paired exactly by the trombone as he unties his robe and moves toward her. When he begins relaying his memory of the night he caught her, he draws out the word “voyeur.” In addition, the trombone pairs ever closer with him as the story is told, synchronizing with him as he becomes aroused and says, “that’s the strength your crimes have given me.” As Muhly points out in discussing the music in this scene, Mark’s vocal line during this story is being performed over the woodwind figure that appears in the opening and closing scenes of the opera, in effect “taking her music away from her.”23 This is the single most clear moment where he is taking advantage of her as a man, turning an act that gave her a sense of freedom and agency into something that inadvertently gave him sexual pleasure. The trombone continues to pair with him as he pushes her further, telling Marnie, “maybe I need to be drunk to teach you how to love,” before throwing her on the bed. While he stops before he commits the physical act of rape, this pairing and use of a more melismatic and complex vocal style show just how perverse his actions are and the full extent of his dangerous tendencies.

Near the beginning of Act Two, Mark’s music is very different. Back in their home,

Marnie gets ready for an event and Mark comes to join her.24 He tries to speak but she will not answer, and he asks if she can try to forgive him. She responds by asking, “can’t you face up to what you did?”, to which he responds, “you fought me off,” implying that while he did attempt

23 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie.” 24 Act II, Scene 2. 57

it, he didn’t go through with it. When he asks what he can do to make things better, mentioning

the possibility of a psychoanalyst, he leads into the proposal of his deal by telling a story of when

he was in the forest and startled a deer, which reminds him of Marnie. Throughout this aria,

Mark’s low voice is accompanied only by instruments in the higher registers. Muhly stated that

this gave his story no grounding, as there was no bass in the orchestra. He noted, “the trick about

it is to keep him on stage in a nuanced way and not say this is an absolute villain and monster,

but also to always acknowledge that everything has changed after that point, that you can never

really see anyone the same way.”25 With this in mind, we see that despite all of Mark’s kind and

careful attempts at reconciliation, Marnie has now seen the full extent of his ugly side and she

must be careful agreeing to anything he proposes. The brass are not heard throughout this aria,

but come back in once he asks what he can do to make everything better, going from mere

stories to an actual question of future actions.

The music written for Mark shows the depth of his character’s indecency. While he

comes off as the kind and loving romantic who almost made a terrible mistake, Mark’s

characterization in the book paired with Muhly’s musical representation of him shows a

misguided man who tries to gloss over the atrocities he has committed simply because his love

for Marnie is true. This becomes most evident in the fact that Mark is most closely paired with

his instrument during a scene where he is committing a horrible act. In an interview, Muhly

stated that while everyone on stage is lying the orchestra actually tells the truth.26 While Mark’s

everyday friendly demeanor is paired with ominous low-brass held notes, showing a negative

influence, his worst act pairs with his given instrument. In this way, the heightened presence of

25 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie.” 26 Richard Fairman, “Opera Goes to the Movies: Composer Nico Muhly on Taking on Marnie and Hitchcock,” Financial Times, October 18, 2017. 58

the trombone while he lusts after Marnie and her crimes represents an underlying perversion that neither he nor the people around him realize makes up his truly dangerous and decrepit side.

Terry

While Terry’s actions are just as despicable and his lust after most women is evident

from the beginning of the story, the fact that he is open about these matters paints him as less of

a threat to Marnie, at least in terms of her sexuality. He is by no means an upstanding character,

but his harm to her wellbeing is seen more clearly in terms of his jealousy and ultimate actions to

bring about Marnie’s arrest. In fact, the two form a friendship and remain relatively close

throughout the book, although this kinship disappears almost entirely in the opera. While Mark

disrupts Marnie’s process in terms of her relationships to the people around her, Terry disrupts

her process by ultimately turning her over for the crimes she has committed during her years as a

thief.

In the book, Terry falls easily into the category of womanizer. He was married but his

wife left him for another man. While speaking with Marnie, Mark states “I sometimes wonder if

[Terry] gets all that much fun out of his present philandering or whether half the time he isn’t

trying to prove something to himself.”27 On top of his past dealings with women Terry has a

prominent birthmark that occupies a large part of his neck which he keeps covered by his long

hair. Marnie does not see him as attractive, but finds him easy to be around despite his

propensity for drama and seduction. Although they have a strained relationship because of

Terry’s attraction to her and her ultimate marriage to Mark, she relates to him more than anyone

else, identifying with his status as an outsider.

27 Graham, Marnie, 66. 59

From Marnie’s first day, Terry shows an almost predatory interest in her and, unlike

Mark, who tricks her into spending time with him, openly pursues her. After the company dinner he invites her to his house for a small party and when everyone leaves, he convinces her to stay and then tries to seduce her. He agrees to call for a taxi if she lets him kiss her, but Marnie instinctively pulls away in revulsion and inadvertently hits him. They continue their friendship, but he constantly questions her past and calls her a dark horse. He makes it clear, however, that he does not judge her past or even care what happened to her. When Marnie and Mark get engaged Terry insists that it does not make sense, but still hopes to be friends. After the marriage, Marnie worries about where she will get the funds to support her mother without making Mark suspicious. She begins attending poker nights at his home, against Mark’s wishes, because as she tells him, “perhaps it’s because he’s a misfit…that I get along with him.”28

From the beginning of the book it is hinted that Terry and his father are meeting with shareholders, likely in order to wrest majority control of the company from Mark. In attempting to show her loyalty in order to remain on stable ground, Marnie tells Mark about what she has seen and heard regarding these dealings, leading Mark to outmaneuver the Holbrooks. Terry confronts Marnie, suspecting that she had something to do with Mark’s actions after Mr.

Holbrook told him that Marnie had opened personal letters while she worked at the company.

This is the first instance where his suspicions of her become dangerous. Before this moment he has been suspicious of her past but has not judged her for it. However, after Mark’s detrimental business moves Terry is furious and ultimately puts a plan in motion to expose Marnie’s crimes as a way to get back at Mark. In the final chapter, when he brings Marnie home after her mother’s funeral, he pushes her to reveal whether or not Mark is still in love with her, saying that

28 Graham, Marnie, 163. 60

it is important that he knows, and when they arrive at the house and Mr. Strutt and Mr. Pringle

appear, he openly states that Mark had it coming, showing that his true goal was to get back at

Mark, not Marnie.

Terry and Marnie’s friendship in the opera is quite diminished compared to the novel.

While he similarly shows interest in Marnie and is a womanizer, he does not appear to have an interest in maintaining a friendship and in fact turns on her from the moment she rejects his advances. Terry’s motivation for turning Marnie in remain rooted in her past actions and not her rejection of him, but in this version he is seemingly pushed to his final act by an anger with her, not Mark, and—in another possible reading—the motivation to help free her from her own crimes. His attempts to save her show a high level of arrogance and savior mentality, but also stem from their shared sense of being trapped by an upsetting past and former mistakes.

Terry’s music is particularly interesting for two main reasons. First and foremost, the character is cast for countertenor, the highest male singing voice. This puts him in near vocal equivalency with Marnie, emphasizing their shared feeling of being outsiders. The second element is the fact that Terry is paired with muted trumpet, which in consideration with several other facts paints Terry into a very specific function: the huntsman. Considering the animal imagery discussed in the beginning of this chapter, his motivation to capture Marnie for her crimes and the use of a higher-range brass instrument all point to such a reading. In the absence of a major character who is paired with the horn, the trumpet is also associated with the hunt, especially relative to the bugle. These calls were meant to communicate with the hounds who were chasing the fox. In this way, Terry’s pairing with this instrument and his ultimate action of bringing in the police, and by extension the people trying to find Marnie, facilitates the capture of the woman who has subconsciously equated herself with the terrified and exhausted fox. 61

Terry’s first major scene takes place at the poker match when he attempts to seduce

Marnie.29 He begins the conversation talking about being an outcast because of his birthmark and his brother’s treatment, showing his deep insecurities and frustrations. Almost from the minute that the others leave the music picks up to a similar climax that is heard later in the opera

when Mark approaches her, highlighted by perpetually moving notes throughout the orchestral

texture. However, unlike the slow buildup that happens during Mark’s attempted rape, the scene

moves to this texture as Marnie reenters the room, almost as if she expected such a thing from

Terry. Throughout his dialogue the muted trumpet mimics him but does not directly pair with

him. The orchestra momentarily moves to a more static and atmospheric style while he tries to

charm her, but as he says “let me kiss you” they move back to the perpetual notes that were

performed earlier. After the kiss he accuses her of never having been married. The trumpet then

pairs exactly with him as he sings “how many more lies have you told?” It is here that we see his

shift from friendly and lustful to suspicious and hateful.

Throughout the opera he continues to meet her with hostility. In Act Two, Mrs. Rutland

throws a large party for her friends and family.30 Strutt arrives at the party and recognizes

Marnie, pulling Mark aside to tell him that he knows who she is and wants to settle things. Terry,

overhearing this conversation, confronts Mark and asks him if he knew she was a thief before he

proposed. When Mark says yes, Terry chastises him for blackmailing Marnie, stating, “She’s not

your wife. She’s an indentured prostitute.” Throughout this dialogue the muted trumpet repeats

most of Terry’s lines almost exactly. This seems almost an extension of his personality: he is not

a good person, but he doesn’t lie about who he is. His close pairing in this scene and others could

29 Act I, Scene 7. 30 Act II, Scene 4. 62

point to the fact that while his actions towards women are reprehensible, at least he is a truthful

person and implores others to behave similarly.

Terry’s most poignant moment comes after the fox hunt. When Forio is injured, Terry arrives and offers to shoot him for Marnie.31 Afterward he comforts her as she cries, saying,

“you’re feeling grief…now that you’ve felt it once you’ll feel it all your life. It’s part of being

alive.” This shows his ongoing empathy for Marnie, despite his anger towards her. He then

delivers an aria that constitutes the only moment of the opera outside of Marnie’s mind and

experience. While he seems to be talking to her, she has left to follow Mark, and Terry appears

to be speaking to himself. In this aria, he mourns the fact that he wasn’t able to save Marnie from

her lies, but vows that he will eventually succeed, stating “I’ll hunt you down for as long as you

live. For as long as you lie. I’ll see you torn apart by the hounds of truth.” As he sings these

words the muted trumpet plays a line that acts almost as a counter melody and includes leaping

intervals reminiscent of horn calls. This moment solidifies his part as the huntsman in the opera’s

overall metaphorical content, and as is seen in the final moments of the opera he does ultimately

succeed.

Terry’s philandering tendencies mark him as reprehensible, both in our time and likely

when the book was published, and his birthmark casts him as an outsider. However, for the

purposes of Marnie finally freeing herself from the guilt and pain she has held from the moment

her brother died he serves as an important catalyst. While his actions may be horrible, especially

by modern society, he has the one semi-redeeming quality of being the only character on stage

who does not tell lies, even when it makes him look bad. The empathy that Terry and Marnie feel

for each other is evident, shown both in her sentiments as well as his. Terry’s actions early in the

31 Act II, Scene 5. 63 opera are predatory in a sexual nature, but this soon shifts to a level of predatory that while questionable ultimately leads to Marnie’s personal freedom. Terry’s character in the book is vengeful and arrogant, ultimately carrying out her capture as revenge. Marnie’s capture in the opera, however, is liberating, and as is seen in his aria this, as opposed to punishment, was

Terry’s motivation all along.

Visual Depictions

The overbearing male influence on Marnie’s life is not just represented by vocal styles and musical aspects, but also through costuming and choreography. Marnie’s kinship and empathy to the two main male characters is reinforced through their clothing, while the constant presence of male attention either wanting to sleep with her or wanting to bring her to justice is represented by regularly present male dancers. By showcasing this attention through music, dialogue, and visuals, the production really aimed to show just how oppressive the male influence was on Marnie’s life.

Simply looking at Mark and Terry’s clothing one can see just how different they are.

Mark often appears dressed in vivid but neutral colors, usually deep blues, while Terry appears in yellow blazers and green hunting jackets. Throughout the opera the chorus is dressed almost exclusively in drab browns and grays, leaving Marnie and her many brightly colored outfits to stand out against the crowd. In view of this, Mark’s more neutral palette shows just how different he is from Marnie, a contrast which can also be seen in his simple vocal lines as compared to

Marnie’s complicated non contes. I rast, Terry’s yellow b lazer, referenced specifically in the book, matches the color of Marnie’s first coat or the dress she wears in the Dr. Roman’s office.

This further reinforces her empathy with Terry and undermines her relationship with Mark. 64

The more important depiction of the oppressive male attention that Marnie faces comes

in the form of a group of male dancers. Acting mostly as stagehands, the group is dressed in

identical suits and fedoras. In counterbalance with the Shadow Marnies, these men only express

themselves physically, an interesting notion when considering the high levels of toxic

masculinity and sexual pressure present throughout the opera. When they are not moving set

pieces they mostly stand grouped around Marnie, intently staring after her. This happens as she

steals from Crombie & Strutt, as she decides who she will be next, as she wonders about identity

after being recognized as Martine in a bar, or while she sits worriedly on the edge of her bed

during the honeymoon. This constant male attention shows that no matter what she does she is

always being watched, analyzed, searched for, and lusted after. This becomes even more evident

during the psychoanalysis scene in Dr. Roman’s office. As the Shadow Marnies come on stage

and one by one mimic the weeks of sessions Marnie has participated in, each is paired by one or

more of these male dancers, sitting in front of the couch, standing behind Dr. Roman, or lurking

off in the wings.

This representation reaches a climax in the fox hunt scene. One of the many challenges

faced by the directors and media team for the opera was creating a foxhunt on stage. In contrast

to their normal function of staring and moving set pieces, the male dancers in this scene act as

the hounds enthusiastically chasing after the fox, while notably still in their suits and hats. Such a

representation further emphasizes the overarching foxhunt metaphor discussed above.

While functional, these faceless men represent so much to Marnie’s story. In a way, they become a sort of physical representation of the male gaze, originally a film theory term coined by Laura Mulvey to describe the representation of women as objects by male media creators and 65

the actual act of in-person objectification of women.32 Such a connection also ties into themes of

toxic masculinity, as the male gaze is but one manifestation of toxic masculinity as seen in

actions of cat calling and verbal harassment. Marnie’s thievery and change of identity are

watched with intense interest and, because of her looks, are sexualized. This is not only true for

the male dancers, but also Mark’s view of Marnie. In the scene where he attempts to rape her, his

statement that watching her steal from his family’s company gave him power and pleasure plays directly into this theory. Marnie’s theft, an act which gives her a sense of freedom and agency, is turned into an object of desire and pleasure for Mark. This is further enforced by Mark singing over Marnie’s freedom figure, effectively perverting something that made her feel good and

powerful into an object of lust for him.

All of these examples point to the oppressive male presence. The use of multiple angles

from which to showcase this element creates an even more overbearing influence on her life.

Whether the influence is deserved, in terms of the men who only seek to capture her for her

crimes, or undeserved, simply by merit of her beauty, she feels trapped and objectified by their

gaze, made worse by her negative connotations with men instilled through her mother’s hatred.

Such weight adds even more to the mental illness issues she already faces, creating a situation

that is exhausting and unbearable and can only be escaped by admittance and subsequent

freedom.

Operatic Contexts: #MeToo and Classical Music Post-2000

As with mental illness, the topics of toxic masculinity and sexual violence were frequent

subjects in American society during the creation and performances of Marnie. With the growing

32 “Male Gaze,” Oxford Reference, Accessed June 18, 2020. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100128610. 66

importance of the #MeToo movement and its ramifications for the classical music community,

storylines such as these have become more relevant than ever. Especially in the opera world,

many women could relate to Marnie’s constant worry about when Mark would snap again or the

incessant, unwanted attentions of Terry, let alone the stares and actions of the countless men she

had met before she was employed at Halcyon Printing.

A rising awareness of sexual violence began long before the twenty-first century. This

shift can be seen in the work of Rosa Parks during the civil rights movement, the opening of the

first rape crisis center in 1971 and the beginnings of what would become the Take Back the

Night Foundation, and the Violence Against Women Act of 1993.33 Following these calls for

awareness, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center was established in the year 2000, and

one year later it declared April Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which was officially

recognized by President Barack Obama in 2009.34 But the growing visibility afforded by post-

2000 social media platforms such as Twitter led to an even larger social increase in awareness

for these issues.

The Me Too movement was part of the rising awareness brought on by this growing visibility through national efforts. In 2006, activist Tarana Burke founded the Me Too

Foundation, which aimed to provide resources to women who had survived sexual assault, especially young women of color who often had even higher roadblocks to receiving aid and information.35 This early movement took on a more grassroots-style campaign, but was brought

into the spotlight ten years later.36 Following numerous and public allegations of rape against

33 National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “About the National Sexual Violence Resource Center: History,” Accessed June 17, 2020. 34 Alexandra Pecoraro, “Sexual Assault Awareness Month History,” National Women’s Association for Sexual Assault, April 30, 2020. 35 MeToo., “History and Vision,” Accessed June 10, 2020, https://metoomvmt.org/about/#history. 36 This movement was separate, at least initially, from the #MeToo movement. 67

famed film producer Harvey Weinstein, actress Alyssa Milano encouraged all women who had

been victims of sexual violence to tweet “Me Too” so that the world could see that the problem

of sexual violence and harassment, too often unacknowledged and unreported, reached farther

than many realized.37 This media campaign led to a reckoning for organizations across all

industries, but especially the arts, where the rhetoric of the male “genius” and the pressurizing

statement that hundreds of other women would kill for such an opportunity often led to a lack of

accountability among those in positions of power.

The operatic field was no exception. Considering opera’s longstanding history of

standard works which depict sexual assault, harassment, and rape, not to mention the male gaze

as a dramatic paradigm, the continued, uncritical productions of many canonic works began to be

questioned. In addition, opera singers began coming forward to tell their stories about sexual

assault and harassment in auditions and productions. The first highly publicized case of sexual

assault allegations was raised against the Metropolitan Opera’s long-time music director James

Levine. During his years at the Met and elsewhere, Levine participated in many young artist

programs and summer festivals and even started the Lindemann Young Artist Development

Program at the Met. His accusers were male and often under the age of eighteen.38 Such facts

highlighted the issues of power dynamics at play in sexual assault, much in the same way as the

Weinstein allegations.

In 2019 the opera world learned of the sexual assault allegations against Placido

Domingo, one of the most famous tenors of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

37 The original tweet from Alyssa Milano simply asked for the phrase, but the response became so popular that it led to the addition of the hashtag as #MeToo began trending. 38 Anastasia Tsioulcas, “James Levine Accused of Sexual Misconduct by 5 More Men,” National Public Radio, May 19, 2018. https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/05/19/612621436/james-levine-accused-of-sexual- misconduct-by-5-more-men. 68

Domingo was accused by over twenty women of “[pressuring] them into sexual relationships,

[behaving] inappropriately and sometimes professionally [punishing] those who rebuffed him.”39

Since these allegations have come to light, Domingo continues to perform on the world’s stages but has been effectively blacklisted from American productions. Both his case and the case against Levine pose serious questions about the issues of toxic masculinity and the propensity of people in power or esteem to pressure those whose career they may be able to affect one way or the other.

Such power dynamics are seen clearly in Marnie’s story, most evidently in Mark’s actions. While Mark cannot turn Marnie over to the police without being charged as her accomplice, which he informs her of while in the hospital, she does not realize this and feels that if she does not want to go to prison under her own name then she must comply with his desire to marry her, despite her distaste for, and to an extent fear of, men. Such storylines have a great deal of impact outside of the opera house and these stories must be told in order to continue to raise awareness, in contrast to standard operas which perpetuate inaccurate depictions of the repercussions of sexual assault.40

The question at hand then becomes how to depict such a storyline so that the message is

clear and makes a difference. In an interview, Muhly discussed how he approached writing this

particular opera during the rise of the #MeToo movement and his intention to let the performer

speak through the music: “That’s a long way of saying that I can’t be like, ‘I am a white, gay

man, and I know exactly what I’m gonna say about hashtag Me Too!’ It has to be an

39 Jocelyn Gecker, “Soul-searching in opera world after tumultuous #MeToo year,” USA Today, December 30, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2019/12/30/placido-domingo-opera-had-tumultuous-metoo- year/2774633001/. 40 On a spectrum from actively dealing with sexual assault to completely ignoring it, classic operas such as Carmen and Don Giovanni stand on the passive side while more modern works such as Ellen Reid’s Prism falls on the active side. Marnie, in such an example, falls somewhere in the middle. 69

environment in which performers should feel like there is room to think about those things and

communicate that to an audience.”41 Such a statement highlights the difficulty of producing entertainment that deals with problematic experiences that creators cannot personally relate to. It does however bring into question the creation of a woman’s story by a creative team that consisted almost entirely of men.42 Muhly’s decision to let the performers speak for the movement shows his acknowledgement that he is presenting this story as someone who cannot relate to the plights of women, something that Graham and certainly Hitchcock did not take into consideration. Unfortunately, reviewers did not believe this was enough. One review, which noted “A Missed Chance for Female Empowerment” in its title, stated: “In the first act, it seemed relevant to today’s re-evaluation of gender norms and the ways in which powerful men exploit their power for sexual and psychosexual gain…The second half shows Mark mostly as a sweet, sincere husband who made the one-time mistake of blackmailing a woman into marriage and raping her.”43 Another review discussed the opera’s continuation of the “doomed female

character,” referencing the many roles that happen to share the name of the opera and from the

opening are meant to die or be ruined in some way. The review goes on to say that “Nico

Muhly’s new opera, ‘Marnie,’…extends and revises that troubling history.”44 While this

argument does not tout Muhly’s ability to represent female empowerment, it does make the

claim that compared to Hitchcock’s 1964 film, the opera moves far away from the objectification

and heavy male gaze element to include an epiphany and freedom brought on by Marnie alone,

giving her a greater sense of personal agency.

41 Nico Muhly, “Nico Muhly on his Latest Opera, ‘Marnie’,” Interview with Dan Bolles, Seven Days Vermont, November 16, 2018, https://www.sevendaysvt.com/LiveCulture/archives/2018/11/16/nico-muhly-on-his-latest- opera-marnie. 42 For entire creative team see appendix. 43 John Sherer, “A Missed Chance for Female Empowerment in the Metropolitan Opera’s Marnie,” Hyperallergic, November 7, 2018. 44 Alex Ross, “Nico Muhly Escapes Hitchcock with a ‘Marnie’ Opera,” The New Yorker, October 29, 2018. 70

Whether Muhly did such a story justice or not is much a matter of opinion. However, it

becomes clear in our society that visibility of problematic stories involving sexual violence is

important. By telling these stories and depicting heroines who do not decline in the end, but

reach clarity, freedom and relative happiness, composers can counteract the numerous tales of

women who by nature of their gender are punished and killed. While operas such as Carmen and

Rigoletto may never cease to be performed, putting them in context with stories of the opposite outcome is a positive step that opera houses can take toward the overall uplifting of victims of sexual violence. 71

CONCLUSION: RECEPTION AND PERCEPTION

Criticism of Marnie

Muhly’s opera met with mixed reviews. While there was overall a general positive note,

especially concerning the performers and the set design, some took issue with the libretto and

score while others were upset by the way that the opera interacted with such important topics in

today’s politically active society.

Stemming from the nature of the first-person narrative, many believed that the opera was too dialogue-heavy and made the audience focus on the words instead of the music. In his review of the opera, Anthony Tommasini stated, “Mr. Muhly opted, it would seem, to maintain mystery through whole stretches of the score, to suggest emotions rather than making everything explicit…The music sometimes seems like an accompaniment to the drama, rather than a realization of it.”1 Muhly himself spoke to his efforts to create an atmosphere instead of direct

depiction in his discussion of specific musical moments. In discussing the music in the attempted

rape scene, the composer stated that he believed trying to musically depict the action would be

too crude, but that the goal was to create the tension, anticipation, uneasiness, and fear that

Marnie felt in that confined space in the middle of the ocean, tactics that are often used by film

composers and which can be seen in the works of composers such as Philip Glass.2 In addition,

Wright’s comments in the Met’s playbill for Marnie showed the creative team’s dedication to

treating this and other scenes with sensitivity: “it’s in our intent to treat Marnie’s experiences in a

1 Anthony Tommasini, “Review: ‘Marnie’ Stays in the Shadows in Nico Muhly’s Opera,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018. 2 Metropolitan Opera, “Nico Muhly on Marnie.” 72

responsible way that the opera departs most markedly from the novel.”3

Such aims, however, backfired, as seen in James Jorden’s review. Jorden wrote, “What we hear instead is a shimmery but irrelevant soundscape. An office sounds like a burglary sounds like a psychiatrist’s office…”4 The dialogue between characters, and within Marnie’s mind, was

seen as too wordy and at times clichéd. Justin Davis of Vulture recalled that “On opening night, I

kept hoping he would dam up the flow of plot and words and let his ideas bloom. Instead, it often

felt like he was grudgingly supplying the soundtrack for someone else’s show.”5 More

specifically discussing Wright’s libretto, Anne Midgette wrote, “laboring to be poetic, it was

merely sophomoric, troweling on cliché with such abandon that I found myself wondering if the

libretto was deliberately trying to evoke the banality of Marnie’s world.”6 All told, these

reviewers believed that the music was secondary to the plot, but whether or not that is the case,

the significance of the problems depicted on stage was perhaps more important due to the social

climate in which the opera premiered.

In his review of the opera, Alex Ross of The New Yorker praised Muhly, Wright, and

Mayers for the direction they took with the plot, indicating that, “In Muhly’s hands, a

stereotypical male fantasy of feminine neurosis is transformed into the story of a woman’s self-

discovery.”7 However, several reviewers did not share this sentiment. Some believed that Muhly

and Wright did not adequately drive home the seriousness of these issues. Justin Davidson

asserted that “Muhly’s music smooths the roller-coaster of Marnie’s life into a series of speed

bumps. Attempted rape, slashed wrists, infanticide—each of these horrors gets a perfunctory

3 Nicholas Wright, “On Marnie: A Note from the Librettist,” Playbill for Marnie, Performance at the Metropolitan opera, Performed October 19, 2018. 4 James Jorden, “Nico Muhly Finds a Compelling Muse in the Met Opera’s ‘Marnie,’ but his Score Can’t Match her Drama.” 5 Justin Davidson, “Opera Review: On the Lightness of the Met’s Marnie,” Vulture, October 21, 2018. 6 Anne Midgette, “‘Marnie’ is all too insubstantial at Met Opera premiere,” The Washington Post, October 21, 2018. 7 Ross, “Nico Muhly Escapes Hitchcock with a ‘Marnie’ Opera.” 73

climax that has to be juiced with a flash of light or a spreading curtain of red.”8 Meanwhile, others believed that what originally appeared to be a reevaluation of gender norms missed the mark by creating a sympathetic portrayal of an attempted rapist. John Sherer expressed his disappointment, saying “The opera’s creators could have intended Mark as a negative characterization, but it seems unlikely given the way the story apologizes for him in the second half.”9

Whether the issue is musical- or plot-based, the reviews of Marnie paint a picture of an

opera that tried desperately to make a statement but did not quite succeed. In comparison to the social changes occurring outside of the opera house, within the Metropolitan Opera at least there seemed to be a shift as well. While this particular opera house is well-known for its regular performances of the standards—works by Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and the like—changes in management as well as dwindling audiences resulted in a turn toward contemporary works and newly commissioned operas in the new millennium. As James L. Paulk stated in his review,

“Marnie is part of a fresh emphasis on creating new works at the Met, a process that has evolved and accelerated in the five years since the company performed Muhly’s other Met commission,

Two Boys.”10 Looking at the opera from this perspective, it is possible to assert that no matter

how subjectively “good” the opera turned out to be, it was impactful by its very nature of being a

new work on a stage that still favors the classics and by presenting topics which interact with the

social politics of its time.

8 Davidson, “Opera Review: On the Lightness of the Met’s Marnie.” 9 Sherer, “A Missed Chance for Female Empowerment in the Metropolitan Opera’s Marnie.” 10 James L. Paulk, “Muhly’s Marnie: Fresh, Fascinating Despite its Flaws,” Classicalvoiceamerica.org, October 24, 2018. 74

Operatic Relevancy Post-2000

While Muhly’s Marnie may not have been the most musically revolutionary work, its efforts were particularly important in terms of social perception. As the second decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close, topics of sexual violence and mental health became hot- button issues that were particularly prominent in the younger generations. In the second half of the 2010s, more people are calling for the media and entertainment they consume to have some sort of impact, support causes, or present ideas that they believe in. Many companies also feel the pressure to donate and actively help to forward causes and movements that will result in social change, so as to be perceived as socially conscious.

In a world in which opera houses are seeing smaller and smaller audiences, many production teams have scrambled to find ways to increase ticket sales. For many, including the staff of the Met, this has manifested in modernized performances to make the plots more relatable or broadcasting operas in order to make the art form more accessible and strip it of the layers of pretension with which it is so often associated. However, the creation of new operas that are accessible either through more modern storylines or the adaptation of well-known films, books, or events, seen in recent operas such as The Exterminating Angel by Thomas Ades, may prove to be more successful and lead the opera house to once again be perceived as entertainment for more than just the educated elite.

Marnie fits well into this category. First, it presents a time period that happens to be almost seventy years old by 2020, but is more visually and socially approachable thanks to the general public’s knowledge gained through movies and K-12 history classes. Second, the story is one that is not mainstream, but does have quite a bit of star power, having been written by an author that has had a recent rediscovery through his Poldark series and adapted earlier into a film 75 by one of the most famous directors out of Hollywood. Perhaps most importantly, Marnie follows along a path of correcting problematic depictions of mental illness and sexual violence that continued performances of the “masterworks” perpetuates. By putting these issues on display in an arena that often prioritizes operas that are beloved by fans but include rape, ostracization of mentally ill characters, and other forms of discrimination and harassment,

Marnie reminds opera goers that these are not merely plot points that can be forgotten in the larger scheme of a storyline, but that they are issues which still reverberate in modern society and are not to be taken lightly. While Muhly’s opera may have fallen short of truly dealing with these problems, the fact that a new opera is presenting these issues for people to see and discuss has an impact on the operatic world and helps start conversations and incite changes which have already begun in the surrounding and ever-evolving social climate. 76

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APPENDIX A. CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST

Creative Team Nico Muhly Composer Nicholas Wright Librettist Michael Mayer Production Julian Crouch and 59 Productions Set and Projection Designers Arianne Phillips Costume Designer Kevin Adams Lighting Designer Lynne Page Choreographer Paul Cremo Dramaturg

Cast of Characters Lucy Nye— Family friend & Edith’s caretaker Soprano Mr. Strutt—Marnie’s former employer Tenor Dawn—Halcyon Printing employee Soprano Marnie Mezzo-Soprano Terry Rutland Countertenor Mark Rutland Baritone Marnie’s Mother Contralto Mrs. Rutland Soprano Dr. Roman Bass