CHAPTER 5

The Excursions of Mr. Brouček
Introduction
PART I: Mr. Brouček’s Excursion to the Moon
The Music of Act I
The Story of Act II
The Music of Act II
PART II: Mr. Brouček’s Excursion into the Fifteenth Century
The Story of Act I
The Music of Act I
The Music of Act II

Introduction

The most famous libretto written around the moon and its imagined inhabitants, is, of course, Carlo Goldoni’s Il Mondo della luna, first set to music by the eighteenth-century Venetian composer Paisiello (1774) and others.

Galuppi’s lunar opera was the sixth of twenty Goldoni’s libretti to which he wrote music, the ninth being a setting of Goldoni’s paraphrases of the Molière Les Precieuses Ridicules. The original Molière play has some basic ideas in common with the text of the first Brouček opera, and Mr. Brouček himself bears some affinity to the good citizen Gorgibus who is taken to task by his two excessively romantic daughters for the vulgarity and indelicacy of his way of looking at things and for being immersed in material matters.

They clothe their thoughts in similar absurd extravagances of speech as do the disciples of Aestheticism in Janáček’s "Moon"; as for example: "A necessary evil is enquiring if it is commodious for you to become visible" or "Take care not to contaminate the brightness of this looking-glass by the communication of your image. "The two pretentious young ladies in question, Madelon and Cathos, wish to be known to their friends by the much more impressive and sonorous names of Polixena and Amintha, much as Janáček’s lovers beginning with ordinary, decent Czech names like Mazal and Málinka become, in lunar society, the more flowery Blankytný and Etherea.

One notes with interest that Offenbach’s operetta Le Voyage dans le Lune (Paris, 1875) required three persons to construct its libretto, although one (H. Bolton-Baeckers) sufficed to write the text of Paul Lincke’s great stage hit Frau Luna, a Berlin-type operetta, in contrast to the Viennese Straussian-type operetta, which provided the celibate man in the moon with a much-needed spouse.

In recent times Victor Korda and Carl Orff have written operas on the Grimm fairy tale The Moon.

In 1894 F. F. Samberk made a stage comedy out of the same "Moon" novel of Svatopluk Cech which thirteen years later was to attract Janáček. The incidental music to Samberk’s comedy was composed by Kovařovic: a Czech operetta also exists on the same Moon adventure by Karel Moor.

Svatopluk Cech (1846-1908), one of the greatest Czech poets, wrote a series of satirical novels around a fictitious character whom he called Mr. Brouček (in the Czech language 'Brouček' is a small beetle).

Janáček’s opera is based on two of these short novels: The Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the Moon (1887), and A New, Sensational Excursion of Mr. Brouček, this time back to the Fifteenth Century (1888). Janáček had first contacted Cech in 1890 when he wrote asking the poet if he would consider writing the text of a cantata for him, based on the Hrozenkov folk-dances, Kralovnisky (Little Queens)-a sort of Czech Beltane Fire pagan ritual, in which the children make a house to house collection for presents, at the time of the summer solstice. Cech never replied to Janáček’s letter.

Five years later we find the composer busily employed in making musical sketches for another cantata based on Cech’s cycle of Pisne otroka (Slave songs). Again the project came to nothing-though through no fault of the poet this time.

Four years after he began working on the "Brouček" opera, Janáček took another poem of Cech-and used it as the literary basis of his symphonic poem Sumarovo Dite (The Fiddler’s Child).

Bohumir Stedron’s Letters and Reminiscences of Leos Janáček (translated by Geraldine Thomsen) is one of the few books dealing with the composer which have been available to the English reader in the past decade or so. In this entertaining, delightful and informative, but necessarily sketchy account of the life and works of Janáček, there appears a passage relating to the origin of the libretto of Brouček which must have puzzled many readers: the author is Janáček himself and it is from an article on his opera which appeared on 28 December 1917 in the Lidové Noviny:

The story is from Svatopluk Cech; Masek adds his thoughts; Holy, some variations; Dr. Janke, his additions; Gellner intervenes with humour; Mahen remains the master of the whole, Viktor Dyk carves out the motto; František Procházka makes the songs. If I wanted to joke I might ask in the words of the folk-song:

‘Let’s wait and see,
Let’s count our ranks,
If we are all here.’

Isn’t it an exceptional, unprecedented work? On the contrary, only small seeds were sown, The point was to make them grow and blossom.

It is obvious from these light-hearted but curious remarks of the composer that a number of persons were involved in constructing the libretto of "Brouček": consulting the Universal Edition of the printed vocal score for enlightenment we find only three names mentioned: "Libretto after Svatopluk (Cech-first part written by V. Dyk; second part by F. S. Procházka ." It is clear that the vocal score does not tell the whole story.

There have been instances in the past when more than one author was concerned in the writing of an opera libretto, notably, in recent times, in the case of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, when one recalls Ricordi’s embarrassment at disclosing, publicly, the mongrel origin of the libretto. One is reminded that Leoncavallo, Praga, Oliva, Illica and Giacoso (not to mention the general editorship of Ricordi himself) all had a hand in it; to avoid exposing a ludicrous situation and the possibility of discrimination, a discreet anonymity was observed: according to the printed score of Manon Lescaut the libretto wrote itself

On investigation, the Brouček libretto proves to have been even more involved than that of Manon Lescaut. At least fifteen persons were involved in one way or another with the "Moon" libretto but we need only concern ourselves with those mentioned by Janáček. The composer himself drafted the first sketch of a libretto with some assistance from Fedora Bartoškova. Artuš Rektorys, a devoted friend of the composer, suggested, however, that he should ask Karel Mašek to write his "Moon" libretto. Masek, writing under the pseudonym of "Fa Presto", was a well known Czech author and playwright, who had already fashioned several successful opera libretti. After working on this libretto for some months, Masek came to the conclusion that Cech’s novel was unsuited to the stage, and that, in any case, the sketches submitted to him by the composer were too far removed from the original to be justified. The "thoughts" (or "seasoning" of Masek as Thomsen calls them in her revised translation) therefore helped Janáček very little along what proved to be his long and thorny quest to find a suitable libretto.

He then tried Dr. Janke, the brothers Mrstik, Karel Elgart-Sokol, Josef Vymetal and Josef Holy-among whom only the last showed any real interest in the project. Josef Holy, Czech poet (who, incidentally, died in the same year as Janáček), thought that the Moon Adventure would make a better ballet than an opera and so to Janáček’s embarrassment produced a synopsis for a ballet with songs which was later published under the title of "The Moon". These "variations" of Holy were, of course, of little use to Janáček, who by this time had already written music for the first act four times, in an effort to accommodate the different vacillating ideas of himself and his by no means helpful librettists Dr. Zikmund Janke was better known as a popular doctor at the spa of Luhačovice than as a Czech literary figure, although he had done some editing. It is true that as long ago as 1908 Janáček had taken his first sketches to Dr. Janke, but it is not clear what "additions "the latter deserves to be credited with

After the composer had been obliged to reject Holy’s suggestion of turning his work into a ballet, he turned, without success, to S. K. Newmann, but found the Czech writer František Gellner much more interested. A year later, however, Gellner also threw in his hand, saying that he could make nothing of it but sent Janáček some witty verses which the composer acknowledges in the phrase "Gellner intervenes with humour". Fortunately, he had better success with Viktor Dyk, another Czech author and playwright, who settled down to the job in earnest, rewriting and editing the conglomeration of material covering Act I and all but the return-to-earth-end-scene of Act II but cutting out Gellner’s verses. This, the final scene of the "Moon" episode, was first written at Janáček’s request by the Czech short-story writer, František Procházka .

Reading over the whole new arrangement of this hotchpotch libretto by Dyk, Janáček still found it unsatisfactory and approached yet another Czech writer, Jiří Mahen, who agreed to rewrite the "Moon "libretto from beginning to end. Whatever else was lacking at this time in their country, there seems to have been no scarcity of Czech poets!

This arduous task was completed by Mahen in a month, the results being highly praised by our irrepressible composer who, nevertheless, got himself into the worst muddle of all by omitting to tell Mahen that he had already written the music for the "Moon" opera and was merely looking for a new text to fit his existing music. So, when Mahen read in the press that Janáček had completed his opera on a libretto by his friend Viktor Dyk, he was understandably incensed. He demanded compensation for loss of his time, the immediate return of his manuscript, and the assurance that no line of his work should appear in Janáček’s opera: so we now know what Janáček means when he writes ironically that "Mahen, alone, remained master of his work". It seems incredible that Janáček could have been so naive, or so forgetful, as to imagine that any new libretto, written without the closest co-operation of the composer, could have fitted his existing score.

Janáček also discarded Prochazka’s ending, and persuaded Viktor Dyk to collaborate with him again and supply him with a new scene to round off the "Moon" opera, sticking as closely as possible to the novel.

It would seem that Dyk had become deeply involved in political activities, for his work on the long-spun-out libretto of the "Moon" opera was dramatically interrupted by his arrest on a charge of high treason. If Procházka felt any grudge against Janáček for turning down his text for the final scene, and then asking him to write it again, he certainly suppressed his feelings, and after accepting some suggestions of burlesque from Max Brod, completed the last scene; thus, after nine long, agonizing years Janáček was able to draw the last double-bar to his score in the early days of 1917.

How far Janáček’s theory of the melodic curves of speech were applied to the "Moon" Adventure is problematic, considering that a great portion of the music was written to words other than those in the final version. If some of the instrumental motives had their origin in melodic curves of speech and these vocal lines were then discarded and other words, generating other speech-melody curves, substituted in their place, there is little means now to ascertain how far the theory applies from an examination of the printed score.

Cech’s short novel, Excursion of Mr. Brouček to the Moon, appeared in Prague in 1887, six years after the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Patience had its first production in London. One is not aware whether or not Gilbert’s text was known to Cech at the time he wrote this one of his series of satirical novels (in which he attempted to expose the artistic, spiritual and moral poverty of the average Czech citizen of his time), yet both works deal, in their fashion, with the artistic cult of Aestheticism as it was known in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

Gilbert satirized what he considered to be the posing and intellectual artificiality of three great English creative artists of the period: the painter, James Whistler, the playwright and essayist, Oscar Wilde, and the poet, Algernon Swinburne. Summed up in the composite character of Bunthorne, Gilbert puts such lines as the following in the mouths of the soulfully intense, fleshly poet, presumably parodying Swinburne:

 

What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel.
How can he paint his woes,
Knowing as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?

 

When from the poet’s plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills. . .
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills.

One finds similar ultra-extravagant flights of poetic fancy in Bunthorne’s Czech counterpart, the poet, Cloudy-One, likewise reciting his own "earnestly precious" poetry to a throng of gaping admirers (pp. 109-12), and when Lunobar reads "precious nonsense "from his Lunar "Manual on Aesthetics ". The difference between Gilbert and Cech, however, is that while Gilbert set out to satirize the artists -but not the Philistines-for the amusement of an English middle-class audience, Cech really intended the exact opposite effect: the materialistic, uninspired, unspiritual, inartistic, hard-boiled "vulgar contentment" of the Czech Philistines, assembled in the character of Mr. Brouček, were supposed to show up badly in comparison with the sensitive, highly moral, industrious, spiritually endowed lunar artistic community.

That Janáček identified himself with Cech’s campaign against the pettiness of the bourgeoisie, is clear from the article we have already referred to which he wrote in Lidove’ Noviny after finishing the music for his opera. In point of fact, both novelist and composer entirely defeated their own ends, by caricaturing the very type of persons they intended holding up as noble examples: with the result that Mr. Brouček’s shortcomings, failings and ordinariness are seen as qualities common to the John Citizens of all lands. Brouček enjoys eating and drinking: he can and does take "one over the eight": yet he is a sympathetic and sentimental soul, and if he is not the stuff from which heroes are made he is no hypocrite; nor is he taken in by cant, or by political and religious fads and ideals: in short-shorn of his boastful vulgarity as a small man of property-he emerges as a rather lovable little man with lots of good common-sense ideas tucked away in his hard bullet head and, if he is to be superseded in Czech-or any other-society it must surely be by someone remote from the stuffy, pretentious, affected, unrealistic, too, too precious types to which author and composer have attempted-quite unsuccessfully-to hold him up to derision.

Vogel has pointed out the many fundamental contradictions in Janáček’s art and nowhere are such discrepancies so apparent as in Mr. Brouček: the initial impulse may have been to satirize the Broučeks among his own people and hold them up to scorn: we see him, however, moving away from this purely local point of view to a much more universal one when he wrote that-"The particular attraction of the opera will be the exaggeration of every aspect, giving it a burlesque quality. If I can manage to carry this out in every direction, I am sure I will produce something which has not yet been done in music. "The latter is really what Janáček did achieve and his completed Brouček opera should be judged as the brilliant and unique burlesque comic opera it is, containing music of astonishing originality and displaying musical characterization and comic psychology of the highest order.

The text for the second part of Brouček (his excursion to the fifteenth century) was entirely the work of F. S. Procházka , although Janáček had previously sketched out a synopsis and given it to Procházka to use or discard as he thought fit. Libretto and music of the Hussite adventure occupied writer and composer from April until December 1917, and as the librettist sent sections of his text to Janáček as soon as they were written, and the composer immediately set these to music, the fifteenth-century excursion was completed on 4 December-a dead-heat with only one day separating the completed labours of the two men. No opera was written with less fuss than Part 2 of Brouček-no opera with more fuss than Part 1.

PART ONE

Mr. Brouček’s Excursion to the Moon

The Story of Act I

The outdoor scene of the first act shows left, the historic Vikárka Inn (which still exists in Prague) with a long flight of stairs, enclosed by the castle wall, rambling up to the castle itself, centre. In shadow on the right is St. Vitus’s Cathedral and the Verger’s house. A full moon floods the scene and, at intervals, clouds pass across its surface. Light shines from the Vikárka Inn where, from time to time, can be heard the singing and shouts of its patrons.

("In order to get soaked with the proper atmosphere, I spent many hours of the night on top of the tower of St. Vitus’s Cathedral, as I wanted to have a fresh and deep impression of Prague sinking into night ", wrote Janáček in an article on the libretto.)

Málinka, lovely daughter of the Verger, rushes out angrily from the inn, closely followed by Mazal, her lover. Like all the characters in the first scene, we shall meet her later in various disguises. Mazal, an artist-poet, has just told her he has been dancing with Fancy, Mr. Brouček’s housekeeper-not just one dance but a Waltz, a Mazurka and a Polka! Málinka is furious, but he teases and laughs at her. The Verger enters and is by no means pleased to find his daughter in the company of the good-for-nothing painter. The strains of a drinking-song float from the inn as Mr. Brouček appears in the doorway shouting to the Innkeeper. He is drunk and puzzled, for the street-lamp above his head appears to him to be rocking from side to side. This diversion is welcomed by the Verger and the lovers, as it eases the growing tension.

"Mr. Brouček is in merry mood this evening", they observe in turn. Brouček overhears these remarks and turns angrily on the Verger. "Get away from here", he shouts, "and take that . . . that pigeon of yours with you!" Father and daughter are indignant, but Mazal enjoys the situation. It is, however, now his turn to feel the rough edge of Brouček’s tongue.

"As for you, Mr Mazal, "says Brouček, "it’s useless to try and steal the heart of my housekeeper. Keep away from her!" At this, Mazal laughs all the louder and teasingly asks Mr. Brouček if he has fallen down from the moon.

Málinka’s suspicions of Mazal’s infidelity are increased, and with a passionate cry of "I’ll be revenged!" rushes away, but curiosity overcomes her and she stops at the back and watches. Her father, echoing her sentiments, goes into the inn.

Mr. Brouček follows up his attack on the laughing Mazal, accusing him of not having paid a penny rent and telling him he will be thrown out into the streets. Not a whit abashed, Mazal strikes a pose and replies with a flight of prophetic fancy: "I see people laughing! I see someone strutting about! I see a fairy-tale horse! A falcon flies away! "-all of which is factually realized within the next thirty minutes of the opera. Mazal could come straight out of Murger’s Scenes de la Vie de Boheme, as a typical Parisian Bohemian of the eighteen-fifties-a gay, struggling young artist, living a hand-to-mouth existence and always involved in one affaire d’amour or another. Brouček, hard-headed business man and man of property, hears only sarcasm in Mazal’s voice and deals with this in the only way he knows how-"You shut your big mouth!" he cries abusively.

A revenge-motif is heard four times in the orchestra, the third time accompanying a curious remark by Würfl, the Innkeeper, "Your revenge, Mr. Brouček, may even reach up to the moon!" These references to the moon and the strong attraction our satellite has for Mr. Brouček may strike us as being somewhat contrived; on the other hand, if the moon adventure is all dreamed up by Brouček in a drunken stupor, then these chance remarks are the generating force of his dream.

At the moment that Innkeeper Würfl comes from the Vikárka Inn, Mazal rushes into it, presumably to drink and make merry with his gay companions.

The moon shines out brightly from behind a cloud: "I look into your friendly face", Brouček apostrophises her, "I have no fear of you . . . draw me up to you tonight. " In this rapidly changing action, Málinka, backstage, sobs "I’m so unhappy! I’m thrice unhappy! I’m a hundred times unhappyl’’ Brouček tells her not to bother herself about such a worthless fellow who has nothing, is nothing, and always will be nothing. "Oh dear", moans Málinka, "what ever shall I do? Nobody loves me! I will jump into the river! ""No, no! "hastily interjects the landlord, "You’ll see! Someone better will turn up."

Málinka’s tiff with her lover mustn’t be taken too seriously: she is really only piqued that he has been dancing with another girl. She looks coquettishly through her tears at Mr. Brouček and says roguishly; "You, for instance, Mr. Landlord . . . I am sure you wouldn’t want me." Brouček calls her his little pigeon and takes a few unsteady paces towards her. "Would you, then... marry me?" asks the shameless girl, and they sing a few impassioned bars, with Mr. Brouček confidently affirming that he certainly would. At this point her father reappears with a mug of beer in his hand: coming heavily up to Brouček he says: "Sir! my daughter is an honest girl! Did you say something about marrying her? "Mr. Brouček has enough of his wits about him to be aware of the danger into which his good-natured sympathy is leading him; so, muttering something vague about "the moon", he sidles off towards the old castle stairs followed closely by the Verger and his daughter. A drinking song is heard from the artists in the inn:

 

Love, O love, is a magic flower.
You take it, you pluck it, it dies!
You were fire and flame for many an hour,
But see now your passion flies!
Love’s a mad feeling! don’t let it begin
Far better drink ale at the Vikárka Inn!

This lusty waltz-time drinking-song is followed by a short comic episode: the pot-boy runs out of the inn calling after Brouček that he has left his sausages behind, which amuses the artists. In the distance we hear the teasing voice of Málinka persistently asking the landlord if he really would marry her, and the Verger booming reproaches on both of them. The Innkeeper mechanically calls after Brouček: "Favour me again with your company"-the time-honoured benediction of a good host.

The Verger forces his daughter to return with him to his house. Mazal leaves the inn, crosses to the Cathedral and knocks at Málinka’s window. "Málinka ", he whispers: "come out here! I’ve something to show you... a diamond." The practical-minded young woman rises to the bait, quickly appears and asks him what it is he has to tell her. Mazal replies with another of these poetic rhapsodies of his-

Sunlight ablaze is dying,
Moonlight on water lying;
From the twinkling stars above,
Comes down on us the God of Love.

Málinka interrupts him impatiently, asking him again what it is he has to tell her.

"Dear love of mine", he exclaims passionately as the opening strain of the "Love is a magic flower" drinking song drifts through the open windows of the inn. Mazal is going off again on another flight of fancy when Málinka warns him to lower his voice (he’s been holding on fortissimo to a top A!) otherwise he’ll waken her father and that means trouble. "Show me that diamond", wheedles Málinka -but, alas, the diamond was but a figment of the artist’s imagination, and Mazal has already forgotten the ruse he played on her only a few minutes ago.

The moon emerges from behind clouds, flooding the castle steps with its light. As the lovers move away, Mazal alternates endearments "My love and my angel "with new poetic nonsense. Málinka responds by repeating his "Sunlight ablaze is dying" verse to him. She has the words right, but not the tune! The pot-boy is still running after Brouček with the sausages. A sudden burst of dazzling moonlight reveals Brouček swaying from side to side as he staggers along the wall, his head high up watching the moon. The pot-boy finds this very funny, starts cackling to himself and is joined by the lovers in a short laughing trio-one of several examples of stylized laughter in the opera.

Mr. Brouček, behaving as though he were sleep-walking, starts talking to the moon: "You don’t look so bad up there, you pale fellow! You look so quiet, so satisfied, as though you had no troubles or worries. Surely you people are happier than we poor earthmen. You have no houses, which only bring troubles to their owners; you have no mad Mazals who cannot pay a penny rent. "The pot-boy, splitting his sides laughing, eventually catches up with the landlord and stuffs the sausages into Brouček’s pockets.

In spite of himself, Brouček finds he is lifting his legs higher and higher, as he continues his lyrical apostrophe to the moon: there will be no newspapers there to disturb one with their talk about robbers, increased income-tax, bankrupts and high treason! The light of the moon grows to enormous proportions, as though it was falling on to our planet. and suddenly everything is flooded with a white glare and here is Mr. Brouček being wafted upwards. Voices from below repeat ironically the Innkeeper’s benediction "Favour us again with your company. Come again soon".

A short orchestral interlude separates the two scenes of this act: we now see a lunar landscape with a fantastic castle in the background built on a chicken’s foot. There is obvious scope here for imaginative décor. The 1957 Brno production showed Picasso influence, with enormous chicken bones, cut out in flats, on both sides of the stage and organ-piped casings above a multi-starred middle, with a row of steps, centre. Props include harps, grotesque flowers and vegetable growths, with a large ringed Saturn as centre-piece in the sky, accompanied by starfish and Milky Way tracings: the radiating sun, supporting bulbous clouds and a Nero-like head, completed a pantomimic hotch-potch non-unified set which seems to have little of the imaginative but exaggerated burlesque qualities the composer had specified.

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