The Music of Act I

From the very first note of the prelude, a new dramatic note is struck:

No 185

The music continues with great agitation, as though hectic preparations were going on for events of great importance, of people rushing around, of uncontrolled excitement.

One naturally associates this hectic prelude with the battle preparations which, if we have read our programme notes, we will know concern the historic battle of Vikov, a battle in which Mr. Brouček will not play the part of a hero.

(A) of No. 185 gives rise to a number of associated motifs (notably the more aggressive sequence p. 164, bars 23-28 (with chromatic tremolos) and on p. 165).

The excitement stops abruptly as the curtain rises and we hear voices from the Vikárka Inn discussing secret underground passages. The music gets a bit agitated as Mr. Brouček swears there is a tunnel under the Vltava, but his motif of excitement is turned into one of derision and laughter by his sceptical cronies in the inn.

A quiet, dreamy, expressive melody accompanies Mr. Brouček’s exit from the inn (No. 186)

No. 186

to be speeded up a bit when he falls into the cellar: chromatic scales accompany his stumbling around and this more steady and harmonious music appears when he turns the picture of King Václav and is actually in the Jewel Room of the Karlštejn (No. 187).

No 186a

The chromatic phrase A of No. 186A can be traced back to an earlier source, and is succeeded by further variations (including repetitions of B, which show that Brouček is still frightened) and more so on p. 174 when he wonders if he has had a stroke or something.

No. 186A becomes more dignified as Brouček recognizes the portrait of King Václav.

The apparition and patriotic speech of Svatopluk Cech is an interpolation: it is introduced by a 618 accompaniment with this theme prominent

No 187

(which flows into Brouček’s first appearance in the Old Town Square): the aria, with its high, idealistic sentiments and impressive patriotic instrumental climax, stands as something quite apart from the rest of the opera. No. 187 proves to be a major theme in the whole work.

Short excited phrases similar to No. 185 occur as Brouček tries to orientate himself into fifteenth-century Prague.

His interrogation by the Councillor and the threatening of the infuriated mob is accompanied by phrases like Nos. 188 and 189:

No. 188 No. 189

worked up to a feverish pitch of aggression, until the bagpipers interrupt with the more suave No. 190

No. 190

and the soldiers lustily sing their hymn for victory (No. 191)

No 191

which are obviously related.

These themes persist until Mr. Brouček "remembers" he has spent many years in Turkey-country of the half moon-when the bassoon tune-generator of a hundred other melodies in the first part of the opera-supports his "confession". Much is made of 190 (A)-a kind of "V" gesture of defiance-and as the Husite soldiers and their supporters enter the church singing the majestic No. 191, the orchestra plays a version of No. 185 (A), later changing to a tutti presentation of the bagpipe tune No. 190 (supported by many repetitions of the four-note figure 185 (A)) as the curtain falls on a scene of optimistic expectation.

The Story of Act II

SCENE 1

Mr. Brouček is sitting on a high bed with canopy, striped bedding and sheets, in a room in the house of his protector, Domšík. Through one window the Town Hall and Old Town Square can be seen, through another window the Týn church. The window-panes are of round, small pieces of glass, set in lead; a painted chest, stools and pottery on a shelf denote the house of a well-to-do citizen of the fifteenth century.

If it weren’t for all these fol-de-rols, muses Mr. Brouček, he could imagine he was back at the Vikárka Inn after a particularly jolly night out with the boys. Well, if it turned out that he was the first man to visit the moon, why should he now grumble that he has had a backslide to the fifteenth century? So long as nobody is pushing him around with spurs, he might as well gracefully accept the fact that he is a Husite and leave it at that.

"Beist that as it may", he continues, making an effort to think in the speech conventions of the period, "dost think thou canst make a fool out of me, Mr. Jan Žižka? Gad, Sir, no! I refuse to allow mine flesh to be carved up like a piece of raw beef. For what, pray? What shall I get out of it? Join the army of gentleman Janik? Not on your life, Mr. Žižka!" At this point, his one-time housekeeper, Mrs. Novak, now appearing as Mrs. Kedruta, pushes her head through a door, crosses the stage and exits through another door which she bangs disapprovingly. "Damn the old bitch!" exclaims Brouček irritably; "Here, Mrs. Novak, what about bringing me some breakfast?"

Domšík enters and expresses surprise at finding his guest still in bed. Mrs. Novak/Kedruta repeats her performance, at which Brouček remarks that she seems to be a very mixed-up old character. Domšík insists that his guest should get dressed immediately and wear the same clothes as the rest of them.

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do", Brouček mutters to himself and steps into a pair of long pants of which, to his disgust, one leg is blood-red and the other grass-green.

He experiences some difficulty in putting on the strange garments in their right order: apron? cloak? skirt? boots? head-dress of chainmail? But humbly obeying his host, even to the point of putting the red boot on the foot with the green stocking, and vice versa, he eventually gets himself dressed, although not without a few sneering comments from Mrs. Kedruta, at which Brouček snarls "Poisonous old crack-pot!"

The Husite army, with the bagpipe accompaniment from Act I, is heard in the distance, announcing the end of the service in the Týn Church. "Thy latest Pop tune, perhaps?", ventures Mr. Brouček to his host, who replies that his guest is certainly a quaint personage.

Domšík’s daughter, Kunka, enters excitedly, followed by a number of their friends, who have all just come from the church service. After mutual introductions, Kunka repeats, for the benefit of her father and Mr. Brouček (and, of course, for us), part of the inspiring sermon preached by Jan z Rokycan, at which her father shouts the bloodthirsty war-cry of the Husites: "Kill them! Kill them! Let no one escape our righteous vengeance!"

Wittingly or unwittingly, Janáček and his librettist made fools out of the lunar disciples of asceticism: similarly here, when battle action is of the most urgent immediacy, we have to listen to a long and involved debate on the political and religious background to the battle which is imminent-as extreme a case of fiddling while Rome is burning as one can conceive.

One of the group, a student, dares to criticize the practices of the Taborite priests as being contrary to the doctrine of the Bible and the writings of Mr. Hus himself, thus bringing on his juvenile scholastic head the wrath of Domšík and his fanatical battle-lusty friends.

Brouček makes himself unpopular with everyone when he states that he doesn’t care two pins one way or the other which side wins: fighting is the business of the army and as a civilian he certainly has no intention of joining their ranks.

He is called a dirty pagan, anti-Christ, and other disrespectful names and the gang are beginning to give him a roughhouse when Petrik, the boy-friend of Domšík’s daughter, barges in with the exciting news that Zikmund’s army has crossed the Vltava.

There is a hurried exit of the fighting patriots.

Domšík’s efforts to fix up Brouček with an effective fighting weapon are singularly unsuccessful, although he finally decides to try a halberd.

From the distance come the cries of the conflicting armies: Kunka falls on her knees and prays for victory and for the safe return of her father and her lover. The words of the "Pater Noster" blend with the heroic cries of the warriors, the sound of guns firing, bells ringing and people singing and shouting. Red flares of fire are reflected in the sky.

In the midst of all this tremendous excitement, as crowds in hundreds mill into the Old Town Square, Brouček slips quietly into the room, hurriedly drags off his Husite uniform and dresses himself again in his own nineteenth century clothes. Observing this, Mrs. Kedruta abuses him roundly, saying spitefully that she looks forward with pleasure to the time when she will see him hanged.

As a desperate cry arises from the throats of nearby Husites for one-and-all to rise and defend their town and nation, Brouček lights a cigar and runs into another room.

The youthful Kunka comes in dejectedly, lays down her weapons and drops on her knees.

SCENE 2

Behind the scenes, we hear the voices of children rejoicing and cheering the victors, and when the curtain rises, we see and hear throngs of people welcoming the victorious army of Prague citizens and Taborites, led by Jan Žižka, riding in triumph with his captains and leaders, after routing the Crusader armies.

The setting sun bathes everything and everyone in its golden light. Even the children hold catapults, bows and arrows and other simple implements of war.

Petrik suggests to the children that they should form a group to bring bread and wine to their victorious brothers. The crowd sing choral tributes to the returned warriors: Petrik compares them to David returning in triumph to Jerusalem after slaying the giant Goliath.

The Husite priests, carrying holy implements of their sacred calling, lead the procession to the Týn Church, which includes Jan Žižka, escorted by a host of his warriors in steel helmets, and the teeming crowds of rejoicing citizens.

When the square is all but deserted, we see Mr. Brouček running out from Domšík’s house and, frightened at what he sees, taking shelter under the lobby of the house. He wears a cloak over his otherwise normal nineteenth-century bourgeois suit of clothes.

His furtive actions are observed, however, by two Taborites, one of whom asks him if he is wounded.

"It mayst be that I have indeed received some internal injury in the heat of battle", replies the cautious Brouček, "or have in some otherwise been stunned. "

The suspicious Taborites point out that Mr. Brouček’s cloak is stained with blood and he is asked where his weapon is.

Brouček, beginning rather hesitantly, soon warms to his subject and with extravagant gestures, tells how he plunged his sword into the side of a horse ridden by one of Zikmund’s soldiers, who was attacking him. The horse bolted, but its flying hooves struck and momentarily stunned him: nevertheless, even weaponless, he pursued and continued to attack the Crusaders. Just at that moment, the great Žižka himself rode by, and stopped his horse to speak to Brouček. The situation, he explained, was bad, very bad indeed, but with the help of heroes like Mr. Brouček, he might yet hope to win the day.

As Brouček’s lies get bigger and bigger, the ire of the Taborites correspondingly increases: Petrik, too, has been listening and he grips Brouček ferociously by the shoulders, calling him a venomous snake, a double-tongued liar, with the soul of an old woman. The Councillor we have previously seen in Act I comes forward: "What strange uproar is this?" he asks sternly, and commands Petrik to explain himself.

Domšík’s daughter, Kunka, comes slowly and sadly from the house and approaches her sweetheart. Her father died, she explains sorrowfully, to bring destruction to the AntiChrist, and she throws herself into Petrik’s arms.

God took from off her head the crown of a loving father and in his wisdom made her an orphan. "I do not weep", she concludes as she returns to the house, "because I know that my dearest father lives in Heaven. "The choir is heard softly singing within the Týn Church.

Petrik now turns to the Councillor and tells him and the crowd which has collected, the truth about Brouček’s battle adventures. Brouček advanced with their formation out of the Spital gate, but when the armed Crusaders broke their ranks, he lost sight of him for a while. A bystander interjects that he saw Brouček throwing a spear and running along a vineyard after the Crusaders.

"Tak! Tak! That is indeed how it was", continues Petrik excitedly; "I ran after him and, lo and behold! I see him kneeling before a knight of the enemy and calling ‘Majne hern, majn hern! I am not a citizen of Prague. Have mercy, spare me!"’

The crowd is madly indignant and the Councillor says angrily that the man must be court-martialled.

But, pleads a very worried Brouček, it was a matter of life and death; and he gets down on his knees, begging the crowd to have mercy on him. This action riles the Councillor and the crowd even more, for it is merely a repetition of his cowardly pleading before an enemy knight. He is greeted on all sides by shouts of "Coward! Liar! Shameful! Traitor! Kill him! " "For goodness’ sake, friends, "Brouček says in desperation, "let’s stop all this fooling! I do not even belong among you! As a matter of fact, I have not yet been born! I do not exist! I am a son of the future! " He is answered with angry cries of "To the fire with the coward! "

One of Domšík’s friends remarks grimly that it is useless for Brouček to beg for his soul, for the only God he ever had was his stomach and his only church a full beer-barrel.

Someone brightly suggests that a beer-barrel would make a fitting coffin for the infidel. The crowd takes up the idea eagerly: "Into the barrel with him! Stuff him into a barrel! " Brouček’s cloak is torn from him and the indignant citizens push him into a cask which is found, as the aggressive Kedruta comes running out of the house holding in her raised hand the box of matches from which Mr. Brouček lit his cigar. She shouts "Anti-Christ", as the crowd sets fire to the barrel, and throwing the match-box on the flames, condemns it and Mr. Brouček to Satan and Satan’s grandmother and his soul to the everlasting flames.

It is usual at this point in the opera to drop a transparent curtain after which the noise of the crowd on the stage gradually subsides, then disappears altogether.

The flames from the burning barrel gradually reduce themselves until they are no bigger than a candleflame!

And it is indeed the light of a burning candle which we now see held in the hand of the innkeeper, Würfl, of the Vikárka Inn. Würfl is looking around him curiously, staring at a cask in the courtyard of his inn, from which the voice of Mr. Brouček is heard, moaning pitifully.

"For Heaven’s sake, man, come out of there", says Würfl to Mr. Brouček. "That is a filthy barrel you are in. You look in a frightful mess! "

But the overjoyed Mr. Brouček can only repeat over and over again that he is home again, he is home again. Würfl remarks that if Brouček has been sitting all night in a wet barrel, he has probably caught a pretty bad cold. Or where else has he been?

Brouček quickly climbs out of the barrel, saying very I confidentially to the Innkeeper: "Where have I been? Very far, very far indeed. I talked to Žižka and Jan z Rokycan, you know. I fought the Crusaders and beat them, too."

They mount the stairs together.

"Without my armed intervention, the City of Prague would have fallen": then, looking around him cautiously, "but keep this strictly between you, me and the gatepost. "

The Music of Act II

SCENE 1

Fragments from the bagpipe tune No. 190, particularly figure A, are scattered across the score in a variety of moods and tempos, in the orchestral introduction and the opening scene of Act Il. The soldiers returning from the service in the Týn Church repeat their Husite hymn with its supporting bagpipe tune.

A highlight is Kunka’s arietta [20] recounting the inspired sermon of Jan z Rokycan. A variety of new motifs accompany the long discussion between Domšík and his friends on the religious and political backgrounds of the conflict about to take place (see at [18], [23], [24], [26]); the pert, cheeky music for the rebel adolescent Zak at [27] to [28], then later again at [30]; the expressive, more flowing phrases from figure [29] as Miroslav defends the communistic policy of the Taborites; then simpler music to express Brouček’s selfish (but how terribly worldly-wise!) theory of pacifism, at [31], [323, [33] and [34].

All the men have been drinking heavily-including Brouček, naturally-and when queried about what part of Prague he lives in and whether he likes their ale, he boasts that he drank nine glasses last night at the Vikárka Inn, as the orchestra plays the quiet opening motif No. 161 of the moon adventure.

When the fanatical Husites turn ugly, call Brouček Dirty Pagan, and other insulting names, even as the orchestra bites and hammers out snarling chords, No. 161 keeps persisting-the drunkedly relaxed Brouček is beginning vaguely to recognize some of the characters-the youthful Petrik, for example, as the comic Harfoboj of the moon adventure.

Kunka, Domšík’s daughter, is drawn in lyrical tones at [39]. Then great excitement prevails at [40] as the Battle in the Town Square reaches its height. The motif introducing (Cech’s patriotic speech in Act I, No. 187 reappears with tender insistence, to accompany Kunka’s "Pater Noster", suddenly rising to a grand crescendo as Kunka can no longer bear inactivity and indecision and wishes herself to join in the fray. But the house-keeper restrains her, as the "Song of the Husites" rings triumphantly out-the same hymn used by Smetana in his opera Libuše.

The music changes to comedy again (presto, p. 256) as Brouček slips quietly into the room, hastily pulls off his fifteenth-century clothes and dresses himself as we first saw him. As the crowd mill round the square, a further hymn stanza is sung, and after some soft expressive symphonic music [46] for the dejected Kunka, No. 187-and the Czech trumpet fanfare from pp. 181-2 bring this scene to a close.

SCENE 2

The voices of children with their "Hip-Hip-Hurray! We’ve won the day" are accompanied by a spirited tune:

No. 192

preceded and followed by repetitions and developments of the three-note figure (A). This tune is also prominent in the victorious procession into the Týn Church, with repetitions of figure (A) providing much of the exciting movement, and again, ironically, towards the end of the opera when Brouček is boasting of his "mighty contributions" to the Prague victory (see after [75]).

The four-note motif from Svatopluk Cech’s monologue 187 proves to be of primary importance in the second half of this act: appearing at [48], it swings out broadly in arpeggio chords [50] and in this form is used as a prominent accompaniment at [51], [52] and [53]: in the mock solemn adagio beginning the final page of the score, it reappears as a tribute to his collaborator, Svatopluk Cech, and in an ironic illusion to the Husite triumphs, as seen through the eyes and "performance" of Mr. Brouček.

A number of short, excitable rhythmic figures are worked up in characteristic fashion by the composer during the interrogation of Brouček by the Taborites and his wild account of his war experiences (see at [57], pp. 275, 281, [65] and elsewhere for examples).

Kunka’s heroic acceptance of her father’s death introduces a new expressive theme of enforced resignation, accompanied with tremolo figurations.

No. 193

It is worth examining the clash of harmonies at [67] to see how "dissonant" Janáček could become in order to carry out his textual commitments. Kedruta’s solemn curse on the unfortunate Brouček begins fff:

No 194

then reduces itself to a mere whisper as the centuries fall away and the exciting cries of the victorious, but indignant, Husites dissolve into nothingness. Then, as the flames from the burning barrel reduce themselves to the light of a single candle, this mischievous twinkling theme appears at [70]

No. 195

to continue, in a variation, with notes of equal length in subsequent pages of the score. The final eight bars are a typical Janáček whirlwind of happy comic sounds, with everybody in the orchestra playing as noisily and exuberantly as possible.

Note

Janáček dedicated the completed opera to President Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, "Liberator of the Czech Nation".

He sent the score to the Prague National Theatre in August 1918: and although, after the success of Jenůfa, one would have thought that the musical status of Janáček would remain unquestioned, Kovařovic felt it necessary to delegate to the second conductor of the National Theatre, Otakar Ostrcil, the task of writing a critical report on the merits of the work.

Ostrcil was impressed but, for a number of reasons, the opera was not produced until 1920. For one thing, some of the singers found the parts too high for them: one of them, the bass Václav Novak, told the producer, after the second rehearsal, that the part of Würfl made him hoarse: "The cause being that the composer has no idea of the human voice and gives his singers impossible entries (bellowing and barking). I refuse to ruin my voice for the sake of someone who is probably mad and doesn’t care in the least whether his notes are singable or not."

For another thing, it was not easy during World War I to procure the necessary materials to construct the extensive and exacting décor and costumes required for the staging of so elaborate an opera.

Ostrcil, who was beginning his activities as conductor at the National Theatre, directed the première (23 April) and the nine other performances given during the Prague Spring opera season of 1920: it was a succes d’estime rather than popular. The strangeness of the subject-a satire which somehow misfired-the fragmentary nature of the music, and the absence of sustained vocal melody content -which had won popular favour for, Jenůfa-puzzled rather than delighted the audience, and counted against its immediate acceptance.

At the end of the first performance of the "Moon" opera, Janáček received in the wings a bouquet of roses which the temperamental composer threw violently on the floor thinking it had been paid for out of the slender funds of the Brno National Theatre whereas, in point of fact, it had been sent by his own niece.

This story is told by a Janáček pupil, Osvald Chlubna, who also reveals that after the performance, neither the artistic patrons of Prague nor the music critics took the slightest interest in the 66-year-old composer despite the undoubted success of his Jenůfa only four years earlier.

Kovařovic died in the same year, and although Janáček was too honest a man not still to feel a certain resentment at Kovařovic’s high-handed treatment of Jenůfa and to a lesser degree of Brouček he was generous enough to declare how deeply he was moved at the loss of one who had worked himself to death in an effort to raise standards at the National Theatre.

Janáček had to wait another six years before hearing Brouček in his own Brno and then it was only the "Moon Excursion" produced on a shoestring: the composer had been dead nine years before Milan Sachs conducted the complete opera on 27 November 1937 at Brno.

 

 

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