The Music of Act II

The prelude begins with a scowl

No 174

 

which, after a few repetitions, dissolves into the love motif No. 164 in a soft, warm and tender orchestration. Again comes another forceful passage, the enigmatic unison

No. 175

 

followed by more of the abrupt No. 174 (in a whole-tone scale): balanced by a further presentation of the serene love theme.

When the curtain rises, we see the Splendid-One with the orchestra declaiming his forceful No. 175-later his impatient No. 174 for as Director of the Lunar Art Centre, he is expected to have a bit of a temperament.

He is orchestrating a score-the love motif on a solo violin but as apparently his music calls for violent contrasts, the next phrase must go on a bombardon, so the brass obligingly rasps out No. 175.

The Splendid-One’s "confession" to the audience begins with another, but much less bombastic unison song No. 176

No. 176

 

which is likely a speech-curve taken over from "Také prochodil jsem školu", followed by another speech-curve "Svĕtlo svĕtel!" from the adoring artists, which passes from chorus to orchestra.

Themes grow from a harmonized version of No. 176 (A) (with a semiquaver pattering accompaniment) [16] as the Splendid-One expounds his patronage of the Arts.

Pegasus and its passengers float quietly in with the whole-tone imitative descending scale, after which several motifs from the earlier moon-scene link up, including the bassoon motif (see [63]) and the agitated No. 173, etc.

Mr. Brouček is welcomed to No. 176, while the Child Prodigy tootles his piccolo. Blankytný, rushing in, naturally strikes his "attitude" with the fiery No. 168 and the first of the entertainments for the guests arrive in a spirited waltz, whose main motif is a kind of Scotch snap, No. 177

No. 177

 

with an occasional sentimental chromatic slide.

The first section of the waltz is a twenty-four-bar paragraph (four times eight bars), followed by an eighteen-bar episode over a pedal B-flat:

No. 178

 

and another fourteen-bar section (twice) where motifs 177 and 178 are combined.

Mr. Brouček stands this exaggerated waltz tribute to himself for another six bars, and then rudely pushes the dancers away from him. The waltz rhythm, however, continues uninterrupted for many more pages, as the carnival of artists welcome Brouček in unctuous flattering terms, and converse amiably with one another-mainly variations on Nos. 177 and 178.

Still continuing in waltz time, a solo double-bassoon introduces the motif of the Moon Anthem, which begins

and continues as a counterpoint to a new amorous tune in sentimental sixths and thirds, as Etherea renews her erotic attacks on Mr. Brouček. She even repeats the words of her fantastic wooing aria from Act I, to an entirely indifferent Mr. Brouček, this time to quite different music, in which the shining Splendid-One’s stern injunction to Brouček to kneel down and worship

No. 180

 

is worked into the texture in gentle, forgiving tones.

A comic Indian dance-tune then appears at [35] amid rolling rhythms, superseded instantly by "nightingale "music lilting on flutes [36], then strings; next a light, fantastic toe rhythm and lastly, below a four-note ostinato figure, the Moon Anthem sways out for sixteen bars or so, until the anger motif No. 180 puts an end to all this nonsense.

The next item on the programme is the melodrama of the Cloudy-One (with the ridiculous statue-shivering chorus movements) spoken above a further waltz variation of the Moon Anthem theme (No. 179), falling mainly into phrases, multiples of four bars.

The frightfully bored Brouček has fallen asleep and in his dream shouts for the landlord to bring him a plate of pork chops, sauerkraut and dumplings! This creates another diversion which is received with repressed laughter by the rival poets, while the Cloudy-One, disdaining to notice the interruption, rants on with his high-falutin’ poetic effusions (more waltz tunes), even bursting into rapturous song as he reaches the climax of his epic.

Mr. Brouček, dreaming happily of the snuggery at the Vikárka Inn, calls out lustily for another beer, and the obliging artists cover up this further faux pas by repeating their Moon Anthem; as Brouček wakes up, he finds someone "feeding" him with the fragrance of a flower! (A) of No. 17g quietly on an oboe [58], going over to the violins and developing into a loud semiquaver arpeggio figure with the artists reinforced by an angry horn as they remonstrate with Brouček for his revolting worldliness.

For Heaven’s sake! Can’t he even speak about his own nose? ((A) of 179 again enquiringly on oboes.) The music speeds up to an energetic and finely swinging quasi-mazurka movement, as the artists keep repeating: "We go! We go!" and eventually do go!

Blankytný now shakes himself awake from his painful meditation, and after treating us to a four-fold performance of his agonizing theme-song arpeggio wail, he also makes his exit.

A light triplet broken-chord figure on flute No. 180 introduces the Rainbow-Man, after which these two figures are developed,

No 181

as the gentleman in question climbs down from the rainbow. Lunar rainbows-unlike the ones we know here-seem to be built on a good solid physical foundation, judging by the two heavy brass chords which alternate with the frivolous No. 181 now heard on glockenspiel, flute and oboe.

A powerful, accusing octave leap alternates with the running triplets No. 180, as the artists look on with undisguised horror at Mr. Brouček eating a sausage. Janáček himself puts forward a musically powerful argument for vegetarianism, when he writes a splendid passage beginning with this passionately indignant music

No. 182

 

which continues with a bitter grandeur of considerable power and originality.

A further amorous onslaught on Brouček by the madly infatuated Etherea follows in another waltz (presto), which reintroduces some of her previous tunes in sentimental sixths, to a background of chattering quavers

No. 183

and its variations.

Some vivace chords are heard when he lets her have the full strength of his sausage breath [92], then finds refuge in Pegasus, who is soon air-borne.

Lunobor again chants his piece from the book of Lunar Aesthetics, to the more or less same "tid-li, tid-li" accompaniment, while the lunar carnival ends with a big ensemble: tenors and basses in a four times repeated two-bar ditty (wind doubling voices, and strings in a diminished variation of the tune) continue with the same tune in notes of double value as a solo for Harfoboj with piccolo screaming its head off in its top octave: after several verses of this, mists fill the entire stage and blot out the mad lunar circus.

At [101] a solo violin plays the wonderful melody No. 164 ("Love makes the world go round") and stars begin to glow and the picture of earth comes into focus. Faint echoes of the last moon chorus still filter through and as this magnificent orchestral interlude progresses, we see again the outline of the Vikárka Inn and a company of artists leaving the inn with Innkeeper Würfl bidding them goodnight in genial mood.

As they leave, the chorus sing the identical tune of the final moon artists’ chorus; so perhaps Mr. Brouček has, after all, dreamed up the whole adventure!

Mazal and Málinka make up their quarrel, and in the last two pages of the act we hear the opening comedy motif (No. 161) and the all-important bassoon solo No. 162.

The opera ends with the lovers singing, in true Italian fashion, a high sustained unison passage: "It will not be long till the dawn. We are alone; I and my love."

No. 184

 

PART TWO

Mr. Brouček’s Excursion into the Fifteenth Century

Introductory Historical Note

Jan Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, on the score of heresy. Among all classes and ranks in Bohemia, he was regarded not only as a martyr to the Catholic faith, but also as a national hero, for he was the champion of the Gospels and other books to be printed and read in his native language. As a preacher and reformer, Hus was greatly influenced by the writing of the Englishman Wycliffe, whose books had been publicly burned by the same assembly as condemned Hus. In the same year, a national assembly defined the Council of Constance and decreed that it was lawful everywhere in the country to preach the doctrines of Hus in the Bohemian language.

The Husites split into two camps: the more moderate section centred round the University of Prague (founded in 1348, and largely accountable for the fact that such progressive ideas circulated around a comparatively small nation) and the extremists called Taborites (from their chief stronghold, the hill-town of Tabor) who opposed much of the ritual of the Catholic Church.

Their leader was the hero, Jan Žižka (with Jan z Rokycan as the spiritual successor to the martyred Hus), and when in 1420 an army of Crusaders, led by King Zikmund, arrived to enforce civil and church obedience on the Prague rebels, the Husites utterly routed the enemy whom they called the "Anti-Christ"; thereafter sacking monasteries and churches and excercising great cruelties on all who would not immediately fall in with their newly-formed creeds.

Thus, from the Protestant point of view, Bohemia was an avant-garde nation in the great Reformation movement; the far reaching rebellion and social reforms of the Husites are considered as one of the proudest movements in the history of the Czech nation.

The Story of Act I

When the curtain rises, we hear voices from above, heatedly arguing that there are underground passages, secret tunnels, secret prisons, even a tunnel under the River Vltava from the Prague castle (this latter comment in the voice of Mr. Brouček).

"Well, you should know, anyway", says Würfl the landlord ironically; "after your miraculous flight to the moon yesterday you can believe in anything!"

Derisive laughter: cronies bidding each other good-night and Mr. Brouček protesting that the old kings knew what they were talking about: the professors who wrote in their books about these secret underground passages weren’t fools either!

Ever since the curtain rose, the stage has been entirely in darkness: judging by the voices coming from above, we seem to be looking at some sort of basement or dungeon, and this is confirmed when, a few moments later, Mr. Brouček crashes in from above, having apparently stumbled upon some unknown underground passage a few yards away from the Vikárka Inn. Alternatively, of course, he may have dreamed up the whole sequence of scenes we are about to witness!

As the light gradually increases, we find we are in the Chapel of Karlštejn Castle of King Charles IV, near Prague: actually in the Jewel Room with low studded walls and all sorts of semi-precious jewels set in gold. Around the room, too, are suits of armour, gold and silver helmets, belts, buckles, rings: even the stone tiles are inlaid with gold and silver.

On the left stands an enormous portrait of King Václav IV and on the opposite side of the stage an equally large picture of his queen. It is still dark when we hear Mr. Brouček grumbling away to himself about these uncanny goings-on in the Vikárka Inn, and as he stumbles against the portrait of King Václav it swings around and there is our Mr. Brouček time-loaded backwards 400 years and in the Jewel Room of the Karlštejn!

He strikes a match, finds a candle to light, and is more puzzled than ever at what he sees. After fumbling around looking for a door, he bumps against the picture of the queen, which gives way and reveals a view of the Old Town Square of Prague. To be on the safe side, he blows out the candle and closes the door after him.

Then a strange and entirely unexpected apparition appears: in a greenish light, shining out of the precious stones, the poet and novelist, creator of the Brouček historical novels, Svatopluk Cech himself is seen. He delivers a patriotic speech taken from the 12th chapter of the novel on which this opera is based. To understand this odd occurrence one must take into account the fact that this opera was written in 1917 when great and small powers were fighting a war of mutual extermination, when the food shortage among the Czech working classes was so acute as to cause serious strikes, and that one of the co-authors of the "Moon Adventure", Viktor Dyk, had been charged with high treason in November 1916. The insertion of a patriotic speech by Cech himself could only have an uplifting and beneficial effect on high political authorities and the general public alike.

The interpolated aria which follows could be compared in import to, say, Elgar’s "Chantons, Belges, Chantons" and other music of social significance written long before and since 1916, specially prevalent nowadays in countries where the social practicability of art is stressed.

The words of Cech’s monologue are of considerable poetic value and particularly apt for the occasion, referring first to the great struggle of Protestants and Catholics in the days of the Husites, and drawing comparisons between such dedicated causes, and much contemporary indifference to equally great world issues.

O Sun of this Great and Memorable Day,
When your golden light made a halo round the heads of our Immortal Heroes!
Those who won Victory under Vikov are immortalized in History!
Why do you now reproach me?
Have we forgotten your shining example?
Has your spirit of courage vanished, have we so basely betrayed you?
Are we but sand when you were rock?
Have we lost all the ideals for which you fought?
O glorious Sun, raise our weary hands and make them strong, as were your hands at Vikov Hill, ready to fight for freedom, ready to die for liberty!
Inspire us with your Golden Flame, so that a poet may praise you and welcome you as a living inspiration, not simply with empty words, or as a caricature of former greatness and sacrifice as I do now.

It is worth noting that Janáček, an inflamed national patriot at that period, wished Cech also to put in a similar appearance in the moon sequence: on this occasion we agree with T.S. Eliot’s "Sweeny"-"Once is enough".

As the apparition of Svatopluk Cech disappears, the Jewel Room dissolves into the Old Town Square in early morning. Brouček is standing at the corner of the street, against a background of pointed arches, gables and towers. At one end is the Týn church. Brouček is trying to get his bearings, to figure things out. It is the Old Town Square all right, but it somehow looks very different from its normal appearance.

Cobble stones! He steps in a puddle. What a mess! All the fault of the Town Councillors, of course: he must write to the papers about it. No gas lamps in the street either.

Then he catches sight of some people dressed in a most peculiar fashion but dismisses them as revellers returning from a fancy-dress ball, or maybe a group belonging to a pantomime or a circus.

He calls to one of them who turns out to be no less a person than a Town Councillor: "Hey, Uncle! Hey, Uncle!" To which the Councillor coldly replies: "If thou beist a goodly man, hold thy peace", and as Brouček chatters along-"Whence comest thou, varlet?"

"Rather you tell me where I am", asks the puzzled Brouček. But the Councillor himself is at least equally puzzled: "Thou must be a stranger, friend. Thou speakest a tongue we know not. The words that thou utterest are passing strange! "The audience may or may not recognize him to be Würfl, the landlord of the Vikárka Inn, the Splendid-One of the Lunar Art Colony and now in his third transformation-as a fifteenth-century Town Councillor, according to the cast listed on p. 2 of the vocal score!

(One sometimes wonders if this duplication and triplication of cast suggested for Brouček and Sharp-Ears was basically a necessity imposed on the Brno Opera Company on account of its limited resources in the early days of its existence.)

"Why do you talk to me in this strange lingo?" asks Brouček: "Are you perhaps from Bosnia?" (district of Yugoslavia, the native tongue of which would sound "foreign" to a nineteenth-century inhabitant of Prague). The conversation between the Councillor and Brouček is becoming less comprehensible and more heated, for the Councillor, suspicious now, openly accuses him of being a spy of Zikmund. The curious bystanders who have crowded round are also of this opinion.

It appears that preparations are being completed for the battle of Vikov Hill in which the Husites, led by the legendary hero, Jan Žižka Trocnovsky (following the spiritual lead of Jan z Rokycan), will eventually defeat the Popish army of King Sigismund.

It is little use for Mr. Brouček to tell them all this happened in 1420 and it is now 1888: first, because they hardly understand a word he says, and, secondly, public opinion is running high against any suspicious stranger.

A diversion is created when the bagpipers herald the march of the Husite armed forces, singing one of their favourite battle hymns:

Listen, knights of God!
Prepare yourselves for fight.
Sing praises to the Lord,
Who shall defend the right.

A more serious character, Domšík, who, sitting in front of his house, has been watching the growing animosity against the stranger, now approaches Brouček, who thinks he recognizes him as Lunobor and/or the Verger!

Domšík sternly disclaims any such identification, declaring solemnly-"God’s great day is at hand! "

Realizing he is in a real difficulty, Brouček has the wit to "confess" that he has just returned from a long visit to Turkey and has forgotten how to speak his mother tongue. The Councillor and Domšík accept this explanation and at a sign from them the bystanders calm down.

"Come thou with me, Matĕj ", says the benevolent Domšík: "we need many valiant fighters. Thou shalt help us this day to win a glorious victory."

The army of Husites has now entered the square and lustily singing their war hymn, they file impressively into the Týn Church.

Domšík shakes his fist in the direction of Letna, declaring that the enemy will be in a sorry plight before this day of battle is over: "Woe to the enemy! God defend the right! "-

Only the bagpipers are left at the entrance to the church.

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