Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb descent into martyrised hell, 22 Feb 2007
This opera follows the play by T.S. Eliot very closely. Thomas Beckett comes back to Canterbury after seven years of exile and disgrace. The music and the choruses express the excitement and fear they feel at this moment with the women on one side speaking for the people and the three priests speaking for the church, squeezed between the hammer and the anvil. The conflict is not really explained: a question of precedence of church justice over royal justice. Thomas Beckett refused to yield to King Henry II and asserted that the question in discussion was then to be decided by the church and not by the king according to the constitution of Clarendon. When the Archbishop speaks some peace and quiet is implanted into the scene. The transition to the study and the tempters is dramatic enough for us to know there is a change in mood, action and time. The first tempter proposes the pleasures of life that would come from accepting the King's authority. Beckett refuses due to his age, though his conclusion, once the tempter is gone, is far from optimistic about the world, his world. "Voices in sleep wake up to life a dead world". In fact it is the world that is brought back to him. But this world is dead for him who is beyond it. The second tempter proposes power provided he accepts to curb the church to the king, to yield his religious duty and mission to serving the king. He strongly refuses this depreciation of the church of God to flatter the king into some omnipotence. The chorus of women creates some reflective moment before the third tempter. It also build the righteousness of the Archbishop. The third tempter proposes an alliance of the church and the barons, which he calls the people, against the king. Thomas Beckett refuses in the name of the godly nature of the king's power. No one can go against it except God. The fourth tempter proposes Beckett to stand against the king and the barons and to become a martyr wilfully. A king dies and is replaced. A martyr reaches greatness in heaven and for ever. Thomas refuses because his ambition would mean damnation. Only God can decides on such matters. The conclusion comes from both the women's chorus and the four tempters. The women support the Archbishop and the conclusion comes from the first tempter. Beckett is his own enemy. But Beckett's conclusion is that he has to stick to what is good no matter what. And he expresses his fear of what may come in very Christic words but rewritten in feudal terms. So instead of a chalice, It is a sword that has to be moved away by God. The first act ends on the first two evocations of the sword and the tip of the sword. These two mentions are also present in the play and in the film: the sword's end and the swords' points. Contemplative and airlike Intermezzo music though slightly reverberating with some anguish. First, an evocation of Christ and Christmas, the birth of the Saviour. Musical transition with violins trying to lift you up into the sky, a bassoon roaming low and far under and behind. The second part is about the Passion. Martyrdom is not a fatality, not something men can decide. But Beckett envisages himself as a martyr. He accepts the perspective. Second act. The women sing Christmas and try to remain optimistic though they admit they have to wait and time is short. The flute is playing behind to create some birdlike effect. But the priests come and they introduce martyrdom with Latin slightly and loosely Gregorian responses. First Saint Stephen and then Saint John. The arrival of the knights is introduced by some strong music, dark and martial. The confrontation is very physical, harsh, brutal. The knights are there to impose then king's will and Beckett is there not to yield one iota of church justice or privileges. Then that confrontation ends with the word sword. We know the real mission: to neutralize or eliminate the Archbishop. These swords rhyme with words in the play and the film. Here in German the rhyme is lost. The women emphasize the tragic moment with some ripped music with high jumps and deep dives that tear up the harmony like the souls of these ladies are torn up by the events. The priests advise Beckett to fly, escape, at least take refuge in the cathedral. He rejects it all. Transition on a note fluttering in the air to the "dies irae dies illa" of the standard requiem by the priests and the women expressing their fear and resignation. Then children come to evoke the cross. And yet Thomas Beckett remains unmoved. He gets into the cathedral and has all doors closed. The chaotic and jesting knights arrive and look for the Archbishop. And he answers identifying himself with Christ. And he is killed. The women do the crying, moaning and mourning. Then the knights come back. And they altogether plead for the king, the state, the nation and accuse the Archbishop of having committed self-murder, "selbstmord", when unsound in the mind. The same conclusion is in the play but dropped in the film. Yet the knights acknowledge the Archbishop was a great man. The Finale is a chorus with all singers, women and men. A eulogy and request for the martyr. This catholic ending is so trite today. To laud and sing the merits of the martyr and at once ask him a favour, make him our servant, our tool, our interest taking over. It is quite like in the traditional Stabat Mater: now you have cried your eyes out, dear Virgin, you start being useful for us and interceding in our name.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne.
|
|
|
|
Make sure you always get what you want with an Amazon.co.uk 
With an Amazon.co.uk 
