JAY REISE'S ENCOUNTER WITH A RUSSIAN MONK An associate professor of music has just done what nobody else has ever done: written an opera about Rasputin. And had it mounted by the New York City Opera. And reviewed by the critics. By Peter Ross
HEN my editor asked and the haut monde, coupled with Neu; resignation and-I hoped-commendable me, "What do you Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael's sage as professional fatalism: "Not too much. know about opera?" I sessment that "In A Night at the Opera, the Why?" found myself sifting Marx Brothers do to opera what it deserves Little did I realize that soon I would know through the collected to have done to it'~). Also, a host of crude something about opera-and from the W troves of unused impressions, most starring a stereotypicaUy inside. What I would learn would have usually unusabJe sizable soprano-a dead ringer for Margaret nothing to do with busty Vikings, happy information heaped in a writer's mental Dumont-with trailing blond braids and go-lucky gondoliers, or tubercular Bohe junkyard, sorting through files overloaded cavernous breastplates bleating intermina mians. I was to cover the world premiere with gems of the arcane, the curious, the ble intimations of imminent death, which of Rasputin by Jay Reise, '75 G, the associ exotic, the mind-bogglingly dumb, hunting never-alas!-seems to descend to silence ate professor of music at Penn who wrote for operatic lore. her as quickly as I'd like. both its score and libretto. It is Reise's first What I unearthed was paltry: random Aghast at the prospect of enduring such opera, commissioned by Beverly Sills for dates; names of composers, productions, an ordeal, I thought how best to feign an the New York City Opera and sung for the and singers; a few places (La Scala, the incapacitating tone-deafness or a phobic first tirr,e in the company's home at the Lin Met, Covent Garden). A few quixotic dread of musical drama stemming from coln Center for the Performing Arts on Sep quotes (AI Capone's "To me, grand opera some unspeakable childhood trauma. tember 17. is the berries" and some scenes from the I didn't think it would play; when I But before the glitter and glamour of the Marx Brothers' classic send-up of opera. responded to the question, it was with premiere-which will also be marked by
26 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE I NOVEMBER, 1988 some clamor-I make two trips to Lincoln what he had in mind. "Yeah," he says, "that "and we all take our chances. I think I do Center to see Rasputin come alive. To get gets picked up by the voice, so when you it convincingly; I hope so. I try to." He to the first of the two rehearsals I am playit'!....he gestures like someone hurling thinks of himself as "a romantic moder grudgingly permitted to attend-the New a frisbee on a short, straight flight~'play nist," he volunteers. York City Opera publicists guard too well out." The music is, to my ears, very modern, against intruders-I have to rise long be Reise's music is usually accorded the brimming with dissonances and harmonic fore dawn, dash to Philadelphia's 30th catch-phrase "eclectic"; Reise himself em clashes, flinty and formal. So I'm surprised Street Station to catch an express train, and ploys it when talking about his work when, at measure 816, Keene asks the pi then stand and wait until it arrives. Two especially about Rasputin-but he ex anist, "Can you play that fox trot now?" hours later, at the stage entrance of the presses some reservations about the term, A fox trot ensues, and the pianist is soon building in Lincoln Center known as the wondering if he has overused it, or if it has joined by the strings, the juxtaposition New York State Theater, I pass a smiling come to carry derogatory cormotations. His creating a tense, still-dissonant counter guard, who instructs me in a Jamaican lilt approachto composing, he says, "involves point. The piano is soon drowned out-in to follow the squares of black set into the examining and culling from the best fact, it seems to sink, surface, and sink tile floor until I come to the practice area, sources. We're all influenced, we all have again, almost like the proverbial "down for where I am to meet Jay Reise. a parentage, we all have roots, and I think the third time." The effect is eerie and un Down long corridors I descend-not that a lot of art esthetics that involved settling. much like Orpheus, I fear-passing a burly negating roots-I think of Webern and When the passage concludes, the orches man guiding a floor-waxer. To my satisfac Schoenberg [two of the most influential tra takes a break. A woman comes up to tion, he sings as he toils, an aria that I can modern composers], who tried to get rid Reise. "Those layers," she says, referring not identify and, for all I know, one that of the whole 19th century-has become to the dense carpets of sound: "brilliant." is the current salsa hit. His voice is what this obsessive quest for what has become, The orchestra pit empties; a violist deli I consider a queasy baritone. for lack of a better definition of the term, cately packs her instrument in its case and Reise is late, and he apologizes for his unwraps a package from which she re tardiness when he arrives. Now 38 years • moves two hard-boiled eggs. old, he carries a tote bag and a suit bag and During the break, I wander around, over wears glasses. with clip-on tinted lenses What motivates an hearing conversations between the grow flipped up; he has thick, close-cropped, ing number of people lounging around, wavy brown hair that is beginning to gray. trying to guess what they have to do with We make our way to the auditorium. I am American living in the opera: those who pace nervously, grind instructed not to sit too close to conduc to halts, place hands on their diaphragms, tor Christopher Keene and Reise, who sits the 1980s to write and emit trills are dead giveaways. When in the front row behind Keene, not because the orchestra reconvenes, I hear more un I am persona non grata but so I don't block an apera? It is, usual instruments: a tenor saxophone war the flow of traffic: copyists, technicians, bles in a swing-era mode, Chinese gongs opera company officials. add brassy flutters, and although I am un Keene-who seems and, in fact, having Reise suggests, able to spot them, I am convinced I hear reached only his 41st year, is very young maracas. I have to remind myself that this to have been named, as he just has been, very much amatter strange, exotic, demanding music is but one to succeed Beverly Sills as head of the New part of something much vaster-the foun York City Opera company-talks to Reise of dation for a drama, for singing and acting. while the orchestra warms up. Cacophony temperament. A little after noon, the singers are called reigns until precisely 10:30 a.m., when the • up, and they sit on two benches at the fore strings sound a concert A (440 vibrations originality." To him, that spells a serious front of the stage, which is concealed by a second). Not until Keene armounces they problem, especially since, in his view, even the curtain. Most are in casual dress, jeans will begin with Act n, at measure 401, does the most erudite listeners (and, I suspect, and knit shirts. They flip through the score he greet the musicians with a brisk, critics) "wouldn't know originality if it hit while they wait for one of their number to businesslike "Good morning." Then they them over the head." join them, and soon, one of them, grown begin to play. Keene, who is wearing a Reise considers the term polystylistic to impatient, summons the shirker with a short-sleeved knit shirt, waves a pencil in encompass his musical sphere, but he isn't down-home cry of "Hennnnnn-reeeeey!" place of the usual baton. He feints and jabs content with that, either. "Certainly any (Tenor Henry Price, who plays Prince Felix at points for emphasis, making some body listening to my music," he says, "is Yusupov, Rasputin's assassin.) A tall man gestures that look like rabbit punches. going to be aware of the fact that I've heard with a puckish expression-much sugges I am too far back to see much of the or a good deal of music in my day." In Raspu tive of humorist Garrison Keillor-then chestra, but a quick peek allows quick im tin, he uses tonal music and atonal music, stands and, with a stylishly dressed pressions: the musicians seem to range in usually depending on the characters, and woman, begins to sing. (They are bass age from the 20s to the 60s; I do not see the opera includes strains of a'IChaikovsky baritone John Cheek, who has the title any blacks; there are many women; nearly waltz, ragtime, cabaret motifs it la Kurt role, and soprano Margaret Cusack, who everyone is wearing glasses. At measure Weill. He feels strongly that the intermin plays Tsarina Alexandra Romanov.) The 741, a cellist asks a question, and Keene gling of modern atonality with more tradi number and combinations of singers shift has all the cellists repeat their section with tional tonal music is not a style, merely a as different groupings practice different out the rest of the orchestra. Reise rises spectrum of compositional range, and that portions of the opera. from his seat-where he has been en the task for today's writers of music is I know the generalities of Rasputin's life grossed in following along from a huge melding the modern and the traditional and career: a rural monk, he attached him score resting on a stand in front of him with authority. "The problem historically self to the ruling Romanov family by peers into the orchestra pit, and describes is: do you do that convincingly?" he says, stanching the bleeding of Tsar Nicholas
NOVEMBER, 1988 I THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZmE Zl and Tsarina Alexandra's hemophiliac son from over his glasses for a moment. Suffer I ask if, this far along, he thinks he is cut and heir, accruing tremendous power and ing from a virus he brought back from a out for opera. "Basically, you give it a influence. He was said to be an overwhelm trip to Rio de Janeiro the week before and shot," he replies: "You have to have the ingly forceful personality and to possess coughing violently throughout our inter temperament to want to do it to start out hypnotic powers. He was also said to be view, he says laconically, "No, that's a bug with. My guess is that someone like given to debauchery. Stories of his I've never been bitten by." Mahler-who never wrote an opera-never assassination-of the huge doses of poison Why an opera? continues to resound in felt the true urge to do so, or never had the the monk quaffed without iU effect, of his my mind, and when I ask Richard Wernick, urge at the right time and place." withstanding pistol bullets and knife another professor of music at Penn who is The events that propelled him into opera, wounds, of his surviving being thrown from also a distinguished composer and also a he explains, allowed him to sidestep the a window, and of his final demise, from all former teacher of Reise's, he resorts to an tremendous obstacles that have deterred these, combined with drowning-are the anecdote. Aaron Copland, he says, had other composers-the investment of time stuff of gory movies and the nightmares of visited the University in 1980 and given a and creative energy in a complicated and small boys. series of seminars to music students. In the enormously costly project that might never Even having some familiarity with the course of one of those seminars, Wernick be produced. ''I'm particularly fortunate," facts, I find following the dramatic thread recalls, "One of the students asked the he avows, "because the City Opera com of the opera's version difficult, out of con question almost exactly the way you've missioned it and wanted to perform it text (they are rehearsing Act II-I haven't asked it: Why would anybody write an that's an awful lot to start with." yet seen Act I). I have not yet received a opera in the 20th century?" Copland, he Rnsputins genesis came about almost off copy of the libretto, either, so I mostly pay says, met the query with a morsel of ad handedly, I learn. Conductor Christopher attention to the singers' postures and vice. "Don't do it," the venerable composer Keene, then music director of the City stances. That becomes absorbing after the had said: "Don't start-just stay clear of it!" Opera, has been an advocate of Reise's next break, when they practice Rasputin's I can only assume Reise missed that talk. music, and his friend, for years, conduct death scene. The monk has been slipped ing more of it than anyone else. Keene in a huge dose of poison but refuses to die; • troduced Beverly Sills to Reise's music, and Cheek is camping it up, twitching his body Reise proposed Rasputin, which he was and fluttering his hands after downing two 'Rasputin' if; a then-in 1985-beginning to formulate. Sills glasses of cyanide-laced madeira. Endowed made a formal commission-her last, it with a big, booming voice, Cheek continues turns out, as general director of the com to mug through the rehearsal. very modern wark pany. She hands control to Keene next It is evident, though, that he is not fool season. ing around: his eyes dart from the score he in its perspecti1Je In describing the opera's gestation, Reise holds to Keene and back again, and he ap accords credit for the idea to George pears to be looking for a physical stance and can£eption Crumb: "George and I playa lot of four that suits him, shifting his body restlessly, handed, two-piano music-we bang our pulling his shoulders back as he sends his way through Rachmaninoff and have a lines swimming out, leaning from the waist, and delivers same good time-and we were talking about swiveling and pivoting his torso, rocking on opera. I said that I wanted to write one, his heels. Occasionally, he gnaws at a unnperatic slwcks and he said, 'You know, nobody's ever writ knuckle. During the death scene, as Raspu ten on Rasputin!.-which is unbelievable, be tin fades, Prince Yusupov taunts him: "I along tlw way. cause it's such an operatic topic." hate you, you bastard, hate you, hate you, Reise began to saturate himself in early hate you ...." Cheek, playfully out of • 20th-century Russian history-he was al character, grimances, rolls his eyes at tenor When I ask Reise his reasons for making ready an expert on and an admirer of the Henry Price, and pantomimes a Bronx the foray into the operatic, he offers some music of that era and its largely out-of cheer. background before uttering the buzzword vogue composers, like F. B. Busoni, Alex At 1:15 p.m., Christopher Keene shushes temperament. (It is two weeks before ander von Zeml insky, Alexander the murmuring orchestra and raps his Rnsputin makes its debut, and Reise is Scriabin-in what would become, in his es music stand twice. "That's it," he says, and feverishly making cuts, revisions, and ad timation, "an obsession." A week later, he the rehearsal is over. ditions at night and spending his days in says, he approached Crumb again. "Are you The question I ask myself-and which I conference and rehearsal at Lincoln Cen sure you don't want to use any of this?" he put to Jay Reise's colleagues, collaborators ter.) Why did he tackle an opera? "Well, be asked him. " 'No, be my guest,' " Crumb on Rnsputin, and the composer himself cause it's a very satisfying musical replied. "And I took him up on it," Reise is a simple one: what motivates an Ameri experience," he states simply: "It combines says with a chortle. can living in the 1980s to write an opera? a literary experience with musical and Reise's grounding in music goes back to Curiously enough, while the replies I get theatrical ones. Not everybody is cut out his childhood; he studied, he says, with his vary a little in the details, they all dance to do it: it's an awful lot of work, and if father, who had been a protege of Swiss around the same word-temperament. you're not terribly interested in theater born composer, conductor, and instrumen When I speak to Dr. George Crumb, the and drama and are more interested in talist Rudolph Ganz (his father gave up prolific and revered modem composer and music for its own sake, exclusively ..." he music as a profession, Reise relates, but professor of music at Penn who taught Jay trails off. "Some very great composers other than that, he is reluctant to discuss Reise when Reise was a graduate student, never wrote operas," he says, "like Liszt him, describing him as intensely private). he (like the others) says that undertaking and Schubert." He pauses and, a moment His parents were friendly with many an opera is "a matter of temperament." later, corrects himself: "No, that's not true, prominent jazz artists, including composer When I ask him if he's ever been so in Schubert wrote several-but they're so for bandJeaders George Russell and Jimmy clined, he lowers his head and peers at me gotten that I forgot he wrote them." Giuffre; in his early college years, Reise
28 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZmE I NOVEMBER, 1988 studied with Giuffre in New York (Reise· a catch-all term that aims to encompass the sonally when a guard stops Reise at the grew up in Queens). emotional qualities of music-and some gate as well and demands that someone He did not, however, settle upon music thing else as well, something ineffable vouch for him. Once inside the auditorium, as a career so early, he says; he played "that takes you from the three-dimensional I get my first glimpses of director Frank piano well as a teen-agel', but he did not world around you into the special world of Corsaro, who hovers around the control possess the drive and single-minded deter music, and makes you want to go there," panel placed over the seats a dozen or so mination that is de rigueur fur a success he says. In his music generally, he strives rows from the orchestra pit, and of general ful soloist. "Some people take the ne>..1. step to push the "buttons of various emotional director Beverly Sills, who sits near the and go to Curtis [the music institute, in and musical comprehension that I like to control table eating a sandwich (I can't tell Philadelphia], and then you have to make see pushed in myself and that I want to see what the former diva is consuming, but it certain kinds of progress, and I was never pushed in other people"; in Rasputin spe .is on a kaiser roll). willing to do that: I was always interested cifically, he elaborates, his admixture of Reise's wife sits with their two small sons in sports and extracurriculars and a lot of tonal and atonal elements aims for "a and a young woman who is introduced to different things," he says. meaning that, to me, gets very tied to the me as a houseguest from Spain; there are He maintained his interest in music as an types of people that we are, the type of perhaps another 100 people-critics from undergraduate at Hamilton CoUege in Clin people that we feel ourselves to be, in the the New York papers and opera magazines, ton, N.Y., but he took his bachelor's degree 20th century." workmen, opera company administrators, in English literature in 1972. By the time That meaning, he says, revolves around friends-milling about. Christopher Keene he graduated, however, he was prepared contradiction: "I think that, in some ways, can be overheard issuing commands clearly to take a decisive turn toward music, and he went on to study composition for a year at McGill University in Montreal. Then he came to Penn, for his master's degree in composition. He taught at Hamilton and then at its old sister school, Kirkland Col lege, for a total of five years before return ing, in 1980, to the University as a member of the music faculty. Reise was promoted to associate profes sor in 1985; most semesters, he teaches an undergraduate and a graduate course. "They really balance," he says: "There's a freshness about the undergraduates, it's a lot of fun. And the graduate students they've got an angle that they're interested in, which isjust as it should be." Teaching, he says, provides certain rewards exposure to composers and musicians, to ideas and approaches that the students are excited about. "It's not relaxing," he notes, "but I find it a really good antidote to com posing." This semester, his undergraduates are studying 19th-century harmony and his graduate students are analyzing 20th Beneath huge posters of Bolshevik revolutionaries, a firing century compositions. "We pick 'em apart squad executes the Romanovs-then turns to face the audience. and examine the techniques," he relates. Though, he continues, the emphasis is we are very emotional, and in some ways, and sternly; the orchestra responds by run usually technical, this year he has em we are very unemotional, very detached. ning over short bits of the score, but the barked upon a deeper sort of scrutiny, a We are capable of embracing incredible musicians can only be heard, not seen-a search for what he (warily) calls the paradoxes within our own lifestyles, within black scrim covers the pit completely. The "spiritual values" of music. Intrigued by our history, within our politics, within our lights dim, then fade, and the "supertitles" the terminology, I mention French com art." Tracing and relating those paradoxes (a convention at the City Opera: the poser and organist Oliver Messiaen, a Cath to musical ideas, he says, is important to librettos, even if, like Rasputin, in English, olic near-mystic and the only forthrightly the opera: "I was trying to reflect the sort appear above the stage on an elongated spiritual modern composer I can think of. of roller coaster that we all live through life electronic screen, a helpful touch at times Reise immediately brightens. Messiaen, he to a certain extent. We experience such ex but also a distracting and esthetically ques says, "is one of my favorite composers, tremes in our lives-the ups and downs tionable one) begin to flash. partly because of that. I go up and down and yet, they're all part of the same pack Act I, Scene 1 opens with billowing in my reaction to his pieces over the years, age. We deal with that on an emotional clouds of incense masking huddled figures. and yet his spiritual commitment to music, basis, and to some extent, I try to reflect The setting is a secret meeting of a Chris and the music as symbol for internal tran that in the music." . tian flagellant sect, the Khlysty, of which scendental ideas, is so apparent.... I think At the dress rehearsal of Ra.srnain on the monk Rasputin is the leader. The mem he's a wonderful composer." September 14, 1am again detained by City bers chant; the mood is ominous, but sud By Reise's definition, spiritual does not Opera officials less than thrilled by my denly some laughter erupts, and the scene necessarily signify religious but, rathel~ is presence, but I take the gesture less per stops and is started over. As the scene con-
NOVEMBER, 1988 I THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETIE 29 tinues, Rasputin instructs his disciples to them-their bodies slump over the iron compositions inClude three symphonies: "suffer pain through sin/suffer sin through rails, limbs loose, eyes tight-shut-and then the first, written in 1979 for voice and or pain" for "only in the act of mortal sin can the firing squad pivots on its collective chestra; the second, for large orchestra, you find the eternal in your souls." Mem bootheels. Facing the audience, its line of commissioned by the Syracuse Symphony bers of the cast clamber to their feet and rifles is again raised, and a volley rings out. in 1980 and performed in a revised version drop their shaggy robes; they stand nude, With that, the opera concludes. in 1984 by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with and begin to converge on the charismatic (Or the opera as written, anyway: Christopher Keene conducting; and the monk. Rasputin kneels over a naked describing his sensations at the curtain call third, commissioned by the Long Island woman who writhes sinuously to the touch of the world premiere, Reise tells me some Philharmonic in 1983. He has also written of his tongue; the scene is stopped again. days later that, though he was "slightly works for string orchestra, wind quintet, When it resumes, most of the cast is nude; incoherent-if you had come up to me at string quartet, large and small chamber or John Cheek wears fleshtone tights. I do not the time and asked me a serious question, chestras, choir, viola and piano, solo piano, know precisely what I had expected, but I wouldn't have been able to answer it--2' cello and piano, solo clarinet, clarinet and this is rwt it. he was aware that, in the aisles, another piano, solo flute, and various other Whatever else it may be, Rasputin is a drama was unfolding. As he describes it: groupings-such as soprano, alto, tenor, very modern work in its perspective and "a second opera was starting to go on out and bass voices with flute, harp, percus conception, and the production and stag in the audience, with some people booing sion, piano, and electric harpischord. ing are calculated to deliver some shocks: and catcalling and other people jeering Among the ensembles he has been cOffilnis there are other orgy scenes, with more nu them.") sioned to write these for are the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Richard Wernick's Penn Contemporary Players, and the Con certo Soloists of Philadelphia. Since he mention's Rasputin's length about two and a quarter hours-and its sheer scope, I ask if he encountered prob lems in writing it. Not problems per se, he tells me, hut certainly challenges. "It's much harder to control something like this," he confesses, "but the way that I hope I solved that was by treating each scene basically as a separate piece having its own separate musical identity, then linking other scenes thematically." He began the whole process by writing the libretto, after submersing himself in the history of the era and boiling the action down; even so, he says, the opera has changed a great deal from jts original con ception, and it was reduced to its present two-act form from a three-hour, three-act version that called for a cast more than twice as large. He doesn't regret the cuts, he says, although he is planning to revise the opera thoroughly after its run at Lin Rasputin (right) strengthens his hold on the Tsar and coln Center. A few of Reise's colleagues sug Tsaritsa when he is able to stop their infant son's hemorrhaging. gest to me that, in view of some of the critical reception of the scaled-down ver dity, and there are elements of transves As the curtain falls on the opening-night sion, Reise may intend to restore Rasputin titism, sadomasochism, homoeroticism, and performance, applause -is tempered by to its original form, and they suggest as necrophilia worked into it as well. some boos and hisses, in turn eliciting a rip well that he may be having second There are also some staging devices that ple of reaction from the crowd. The sing thoughts about complying with demands are more attention-grabbers than mere ers are received well. Reise is greeted for cuts and condensation. attention-getters. At the end of the first, respectfully, if not with wild abandon. Ten days after the debut, I meet Reise in partial rehearsal I attended, the only bit When director Corsaro takes the stage, he his office on campus, and we swap perspec of scenery visible was a backdrop, a huge is booed-if not en masse, roundly-and he tives on the evening; he is particularly in placard depicting the members of the reacts first by cupping his hands around his terested in mine because, he says, he is still doomed Romanovs after they had been mouth to form a hull horn and booing back, so immersed in the opera and in the sub summarily executed by Bolshevik revolu then by shaking his fist vigorously at his ject matter that he feels "slightly spacey" tionaries in a basement of the Imperial Pal detractors. It may not be decorous, but it and because I have since spoken to Frank ace. By opening night, the backdrop is is fascinating. Corsaro, who dashed off after the perform gone. In its place is a new device. The per When I ask Reise if Rasputin is the big ance to Los Angeles, where he is prepar fOlmers playing the Romanovs are escorted gest project he's undertaken, he laughs and ing a restored version of Jacques onto a window-washer-type platform that gives a double assent for emphasis: "Oh Offenbach's Thies Of Hoffmann. Reise tells lifts them high above the stage. A firing yeah, oh yeah," he says, "in absolutely me that, at the second performance of squad forms below. It turns its long rifles every sense of it. It's about five times longer Raspulin-a Sunday matinee-audience re on the Russian royals and dispatches than any other piece I've written." (Reise's sponse was "very good: there were no
30 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETIE I NOVEMBER, 1988 boos." I point out that at the premiere, he nored." But he also called its message and eclecticism-mining the past for inspiration was not booed; "No," he says, "but I was characters, even its music, "remote." and lodes of allusion-is a risky proposition, ripped apart in The New York Times the Two weeks after his review in the Times, one that can yield an artistic pay-off in the next day, so I couldn't very well say it was Henahan discussed Rasputin again, this right hands. That was not the case, he all receptive." time in a reflective piece in the Sunday edi declared, in Reise's Rasputin. Henahan Critical response to Rasputin was mixed. tion. The vitriol was softened considera went on to tacitly approve of the New York Times critic Donal Henahan (in a review bly, if the overall assessment of the opera City Opera's resolve in commissioning and that ran the following Monday, not the next was unchanged. Henahan noted that suc presenting new works, and he went so far day) dismissed it on all counts-musical, cessful first operas are extremely uncom as to offer some consolation to Reise. But theatrical, and operatic~and lambasted mon, and he noted as well the profound still, he deemed Rasputin a failure, proba Keene ("a heavy hand"), Corsaro ("neo difficulties contemporary composers face bly impossible to repair. Brechtian staging ... in his familiar bluntly in attempting to invest freshness and origi Leighton Kerner, in The Village Voice, sensational way"), and-especialLy-Reise nality in opera; the best operatic talents, viewed Rasputin as a notable contrast to ("a characterless melange of 20th-century he observed, like Mozart, Verdi, and most new operas, most of which fail, he styles"). New York magazine was not much . Wagner, used established theatrical con said, as compositions, even though they warmer. The Philadelphia Inquirer review ventions and musical forms, bending them, may be bolstered by expert production and lacked the blistering disdain of the others. perhaps, to their individual purposes. To performanc.e. Kerner praised Reise's score Its critic, Daniel Webster, judged from day's opera composers have no such tradi ("Rasputin . .. has lots of strong music") Rasputin's rowdy reception that "the work tion and, Henahan continued, often possess and found fault only with the opera's stag has said something too strong to be ig no definitive musical style; resorting to ing (he called it "badly focused"). He ap-
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE: Rasputin and demands Rasputin's dismissal. and his followers gather for a meet Nicholas finally breaks down com ing of the Khlysty, a heretical reli pletely and, in an hallucination, gious sect. Rasputin preaches that THE RISE AND shouts out military orders and calls salvation is achieved only through for plans from his ministers. pain and mortal sin. When Iliodor, Yusupov realizes that all is lost a zealous monk, charges blasphemy, FALL OF RASPUTIN the Thar and Tsaritsa are both under Rasputin rebukes him, and an orgy Rasputin's hypnotic power. Yusupov of sex and flagellation ensues. Ras plans an apparent reconciliation putin dares God to strike him down A synopsis of Jay Reise's opera. with Rasputin in order to destroy instantly if He is displeased. When him. Alexandra reassures her de he is not harmed, the Khlysty pro ACT ONE, SCENE THREE: ACT TWO, SCENE ONE: Yusupov, ranged husband that she and claim Rasputin their Savior. Iliodor Nicholas and Alexandra enjoy a in drag, performs in a cabaret. Rasputin will save Russia. After is overcome by the sectarians. quiet moment with their infant son After· a thunderous reception, he is urging Yusupov to join them, Alexei, the heir to the throne. visited backstage by his friend Dr. Rasputin symbolically proclaims ACT ONE, SCENE TWO: Prince Nicholas, however, is clearly dis Sokolsky, who tells him he was dis Alexei the new Tsar. Felix Yusupov and his friend Grand tracted by the gunfire outside, and missed by Rasputin. Distraught Duke Dmitry Pavlovich meet at a Alexandra is troubled by prophecies over his bleak future, Sokolsky ACT TWO, SCENE FOUR: At Winter Palace ball celebrating Rus of Alexei's death. As Alexandra shoots himself. In a rage, Yusupov Yusupov's palace, Smerdsky, Dmitry sia's entry into the Great War; they holds Alexei, Nicholas notices that vows revenge upon Rasputin. and Zhevadov prepare poisoned discuss the Tsar's military naivete the child's back is covered with wine and cakes to kill Rasputin. and the emergence of the peasant blood. Alexei has hemophilia, and ACT TWO, SCENE TWO: At an orgy Yusupov arrives with Rasputin, Rasputin, a lecherous monk who . Sokolsky, the royal doctor, cannot in his apartment, Rasputin makes who has been lured to the palace calls himself the voice of God and stop the bleeding. Rasputin sud love to several women. Yusupov on the promise of cementing their the people. Tsar Nicholas and his denly appears and, as if by magic, bursts in and finds his wife Irina alliance and of seeing Felix's wife wife Alexandra arrive at the ball. stops the hemorrhaging. Nicholas among the revelers; Yusupov. orders Irina, who is purportedly upstairs Terrified by the restless crowd gath receives word that Cossacks have his henchmen to rough up Raspu giving a party. While waiting for ered outside, Alexandra recalls a fired upon a mob .attempting to tin. Rasputin tries to bribe Yusupov Irina, Yusupov and Rasputin argue prophecy that Germany would not storm the palace; when he goes to into becoming political allies. When about the succession to the throne. be vanquished until the Russian au mollify the crowd, Rasputin, with that fails, Rasputin overcomes As Rasputin repeatedly refuses the tocracy was destroyed. Rasputin Alexandra's approval, curtly dis Yusupov physically and then hyp wine and cake, Yusupov grows in enters, greeting the Tsar in an misses Sokolsky. Alexandra berates notizes him into total submission. creasingly nervous. When Rasputin overly familiar manner. Outside, a herself for passing hemophilia on finally accepts the refreshments, riot erupts in which many are to her son, but Rasputin calms her ACT TWO, SCENE THREE: In the the poison has no effect. On the killed. When Rasputin commands by saying that the Mother of God stateroom, Alexandra and Rasputin pretext of inquiring about Irina's the indecisive Nicholas to reassure has promised that Russia and Alexei discuss Nicholas's need for medical delay, Yusupov periodically goes the crowd, Yusupov challenges will grow stronger together. Alexei "cures." Rasputin suggests that upstairs to confer with the conspir Rasputin's impertinence. Alexandra will be saved, Rasputm vows, if Nicholas abdicate in favor of Alexei ators. In desperation, he gets a convinces Nicholas to obey Raspu Alexandra follows his advice. and let Alexandra rule as regent. revolver and shoots Rasputin. The tin, but Yusupov orders the monk's Yusupov, Smerdsky, Dmitry, and assassins prepare to dispose of arrest. Rasputin repels the guards, ACT ONE, SCENE FOUR: Rasputin General Zhevadov concur that Ras Rasputin's body in the river, and and the crowd quiets when he gloats that he has gained complete putin's power must be thwarted. Yusupov abuses it when left alone. emerges from the palace with control over the Tsar and Tharitsa. Nicholas, looking terribly ill, is led But inspired by spiritual voices, Nicholas. Alexandra swears that Nothing can prevent him from rul into the room. Zhevadov informs Rasputin revives, and the terrified Rasputin will save them; Yusupov ing Russia now. the Tsar of heavy losses in battle, Yusupov summons his friends, who resolves to destroy him in order to and Rasputin pleads for an end to brutally finish Rasputin off. His preserve the security of the nobil ACT TWO, PROLOGUE: Lenin ex the war. Yusupov shows Nicholas body is reclaimed by the Khlysty as ity and then leads the court in a pounds upon the need for revolu suggestive cartoons' of Rasputin revolution sweeps Russia and the toast to Russia's coming victory. tionary violence and terror. and Alexandra and her daughters, Imperial family is executed.
NOVEMBER, 1988 I THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZErrE 31 proved of Reise's merger of 19th- and 20th falsetto parts performed by bass-baritone is the very human versus the maniacaV century styles---!'The core of his opera's Cheek-a few keening lines that inched demonic, one of the worst experiences of strength is its dramatically apt juxtaposi ominously above the musical background. humanity, the stuff that's happening in the tion of tonal and atonal sequences'!-.and "He said I didn't know how to write for 20th century-this tremendous insensitiv of Reise's employment of radically differ voice," Reise recalls. The charge irritates ity and slaughter that's starting then will ent forms for each of the segments---!'The him, and he details his consultations with go on through the century. So I'm not so score as a whole thus gives you a variety Cheek once the singer had been hired; he sure that I didn't succeed in doing exactly of weight and style that keeps the ear alert had not rewritten the lines, but he altered what I wanted. As soon as you are drawn from scene to scene." some to accommodate the singer's specific to a point of almost romantic catharsis, Philadelphia Daily News music critic Bill range. "I know the vocal tessitura," Reise you're thrown out of it. That's the whole Zakariasen urged readers to "go see Raspu intones (using the Italian word for "tex point." tin, already-you may hate it, but you ture" to indicate the prevailing or average Reise describes Tsar Nicholas's ineffectu won't be bored." He found less fault with position of a composer's notes in relation ality as a ruler and his increasing with the opera's staging than with its libretto, to the range of a voice or instrument). drawal into himself and his domestic and though he called Reise "inept" as a The falsetto, he says, was meant to re affairs, the indifference to politics and to librettist, he deemed him "an accomplished veal "the schizophrenic nature of the the internal disputes which led to the col composer." Describing the score as "eclec character, the changing of the character." lapse of his empire. "I don't know anybody tic," he said it "evokes the tumultuous He suddenly sings a note, then sends the who thinks that Nicholas was a great hero period immediately preceeding the 1917 fall note soaring up the scale in a shriek. "Any with a tragic flaw," he exclaims: "He was of Tharist Russia." one can do that," he emphasizes---!'that's a wimp! Thlk about a wimp factor!" In The Washington Times, Octavio Roca not falsetto." (His own voice is hard to de But if he is not sympathetic to the accorded Rasputin the paper's top rating scribe, probably because it is ordinary-a characters, he does not take them, or their of four stars. "This new opera is a spell low tenor that becomes more highly parts in history, at all lightly. "To me," he binding, challenging, and profoundly beau elaborates, "it's very serious, because, after tiful creation," Roca declared. Hejustified • all, these personalities were the ones who the employment of violence and nudity by have made the world largely what it is considering them "an integral part of a In the music of today; their ineptitude led to world-wide score whose seriousness and effectiveness collapse, to World War I, to revolution." The are beyond question." Reise's first opera, conception of the characters and their Roca pronounced, "works." 'Rasputin,' says fates, he says, was something he and Frank As for the ruckus at the premiere and the Corsaro had agreed upon. "As you've prob critical reception to Rasputin, Reise Reise, 'I was ably read," Reise says, "people say the presents a cool and unruffled reaction: "I characters and characterizations are think I'm taking it all pretty well," he says, trying to reflect wooden. Yes, they're wooden! Of COUTse, and he is willing to provide hiS own per they're wooden! If they were all heart, and spectives on the commentary. Of Daniel all wonderful, tragic figures, you wouldn't Webster's review, "It's clear he had listened the sart of roUer have had what happened there!" Nonethe to the opera very carefully, and he had a less, he is still mulling over the change of very thought-out response to it," Reise coaster that we remoteness: "It's not something I dismiss." says: "There were certain things he picked Although Reise says Rasputin has been bones over and took issue with-I agree all through.' the most enjoyable working experience of with certain things, I don't agree with live his life ("I can't imagine having so much others, but I thought that that review was • fun again") and although he says quite fine." pitched when he grows excited, as he fre matter-of-factly that he is not unduly dis Some of Henahan's accusations disturb quently does.) tressed by its critical reception, he admits him, however. "The inaccuracies in what The most important comment on Raspu that a work listed on the two-year-old cur he said regarding my opera were such that tin, Reise says, "one that disturbed me and riculum vitae he had given me-an opera I didn't recognize my own piece in it," he is something I continue to reassess," was based on a novella by Balzac, "Sarrasine," says, warming to the topic: "He said the that most reviewers felt oUtsi'de the realm rediscovered and made immensely popular piece was primarily atonal; that the piece of the drama---!'Its events keep listeners at in the 1970s by French literary theoretician is mostly atonal, simply atonal, is simply a distance," said Webster. Reise ruminates: Roland Barthes-is on hold. "I certainly not true. It's mostly tonal, and the atonal "You have a situation in which you have wouldn't write an opera without a commis ity springs from other things-it's always a victimized family with a hemophiliac son, sion, without as close as you can get to a an extension." Of the complaint that the which is heartbreaking; and on the other guarantee of a performance," he declares. critic could not understand the words, hand, you have a tsar who has been re Even with another commission, he would Reise says he's asked people who attended sponsible for the pogroms and things like prefer not to have the sort of deadline that for corroboration and has heard none, and that; just how far do we draw in and not propelled Rasputin from an idea to a debut he points out that in opera, "you have to draw in? When the child has hemophilia in roughly three years. "I wouldn't really take everything in context: there's a cer and the empress is all upset, it's a tragic want to stay still long enough to do it," he tain point where you repeat things, you situation-I can't think of anything more says of the prospect of writing another have ensembles. Can you understand human-yet, on the other hand, gunfire opera; "I would probably write other everything in Falstaff? Of course not: goes on outside all through the opera, and pieces between." Still, he repeats, the ex you've got four or five people singing at the you know what's happening out there is perience of Rasputin "hasn't dampened same time." going to cause this huge revolution. my ardor for the theater or anything like Henahan had taken issue with some of "Part of the paradox," he continues, that-I would love to write another opera." the vocal techniques as well, especially the "part of the marvelous sense of contrast, END
32 THE PENNSYlVANIA GAZmE I NOVEMBER, 1988