The Victorians and opera: Trollope meets Verdi

Poster for La Traviata, London, 1864, from the East London Theatre Archive

Act II of Guiseppe Verdi's La Traviata (1853) contains one of the greatest scenes in opera. It is a confrontation between the courtesan Violetta and the father of her lover Alfredo Germont. Alfredo's father has come to demand that Violetta break off her affair with his son: it is damaging not only Alfredo's own prospects and reputation, but those of Alfredo's sister. She is engaged to the son of a wealthy family who are disturbed by the rumors that are reaching them of Alfredo's involvement with Violetta.

At first the elder Germont is peremptory, and Violetta is defiant. But he soon realizes that she truly loves his son, and is touched in spite of himself. He then makes an emotional appeal to her on behalf of his daughter, and Violetta realizes that she must sacrifice her own happiness to protect that of her lover and his family. From mutual hostility, their conversation moves to understanding and then deep sympathy. At the end, the elder Germont understands how badly he has misjudged Violetta, and both are in tears.

Here is an excerpt of this scene taken from the 1994 Covent Garden production by Richard Eyre conducted by Sir Georg Solti, with Angela Gheorghiu as Violetta and Leo Nucci as Germont:

In Anthony Trollope's novel The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867), the wealthy Archdeacon Grantly learns that his widower son Henry has proposed marriage to Grace Crawley, the daughter of an impoverished and disgraced local parson who is under suspicion for the theft of a check for twenty pounds. He goes to meet her in order to separate them forever:

'Of course you must understand, Miss Crawley, that I should not venture to speak to you on this subject unless I myself were very closely interested in it.' He had not yet said what was the subject, and it was not probable that Grace should give him any assistance by affecting to understand this without direct explanation from him. She sat quite motionless, and did not even aid him by showing by her altered colour that she understood his purpose. 'My son has told me,' said he, 'that he has professed an attachment for you, Miss Crawley.'

Then there was another pause, and Grace felt that she was compelled to say something. 'Major Grantly has been very good to me,' she said, and then she hated herself for having uttered words which were so tame and unwomanly in their spirit. Of course her lover's father would despise her for having so spoken. After all it did not much signify. If he would only despise her and go away, it would perhaps be for the best.

'I do not know about being good,' said the archdeacon. 'I think he is good. I think he means to be good.'

'I am sure he is good,' said Grace warmly.

'You know he has a daughter, Miss Crawley?'

'Oh, yes; I know Edith well.'

'Of course his first duty is to her. Is it not? and he owes much to his family. Do you not feel that?'

'Of course I feel it, sir.' The poor girl had always heard Dr Grantly spoken of as the archdeacon, but she did not in the least know what she ought to call him.

'Now, Miss Crawley, pray listen to me; I will speak to you very openly. I must speak to you openly, because it is my duty on my son's behalf—but I will endeavour to speak to you kindly also. Of yourself I have heard nothing but what is favourable, and there is no reason as yet why I should not respect and esteem you.' Grace told herself that she would do nothing which ought to forfeit his respect and esteem, but that she did not care two straws whether his respect and esteem were bestowed on her or not. She was striving after something very different from that. 'If my son were to marry you, he would greatly injure himself, and would very greatly injure his child.' Again he paused. He had told her to listen, and she was resolved that she would listen—unless he would say something which might make a word from her necessary at the moment. 'I do not know whether there does at present exist any engagement between you.'

'There is no engagement, sir.'

'I am glad of that—very glad of it....Now, Miss Crawley, of course I cannot wish to say a word that will hurt your feelings. But there are reasons—'

'I know,' said she, interrupting him. 'Papa is accused of stealing money. He did not steal it, but people think he did. And then we are so very poor.'

'You do understand me then—and I feel grateful; I do indeed.'

'I don't think our being poor ought to signify a bit,' said Grace. 'Papa is a gentleman, and a clergyman, and mamma is a lady.'

'But, my dear—'

'I know I ought not to be your son's wife as long as people think that papa stole the money. If he had stolen it, I ought never to be Major Grantly's wife—or anybody else's. I know that very well. And as for Edith—I would sooner die than do anything that would be bad to her.'

The archdeacon had now left the rug, and advanced till he was almost close to the chair on which Grace was sitting. 'My dear,' he said,' what you say does you very much honour—very much honour indeed.' Now that he was close to her, he could look into her eyes, and he could see the exact form of her features, and could understand—could not help understanding—the character of her countenance. It was a noble face, having in it nothing that was poor, nothing that was mean, nothing that was shapeless. It was a face that promised infinite beauty, with a promise that was on the very verge of fulfilment. There was a play about her mouth as she spoke and a curl in her nostrils as the eager words came from her, which almost made the selfish father give way. Why had they not told him that she was such a one as this?...

'What you say does you very much honour indeed,' said the archdeacon.

'I should not mind at all about being poor,' said Grace.

'No; no; no,' said the archdeacon.

'Poor as we are—and no clergyman, I think, was ever so poor—I should have done as your son asked me at once, if it had been only that—because I love him.'

'If you love him you will not wish to injure him.'

'I will not injure him. Sir, there is my promise.' And now as she spoke she rose from her chair, and standing close to the archdeacon, laid her hand very lightly on the sleeve of his coat. 'There is my promise. As long as people say that papa stole the money, I will never marry your son. There.'

The archdeacon was still looking down at her, and feeling the slight touch of her fingers, raised his arm a little as though to welcome the pressure. He looked into her eyes, which were turned eagerly towards his, and when doing so was quite sure that the promise would be kept. It would have been a sacrilege—he felt that it would have been a sacrilege—to doubt such a promise. He almost relented. His soft heart, which was never very well under his own control, gave way so far that he was nearly moved to tell her that, on his son's behalf, he acquitted her of the promise. What could any man's son do better than have such a woman for his wife? It would have been of no avail had he made her such offer. The pledge she had given had not been wrung from her by his influence, nor could his influence have availed aught with her towards the alteration of her purpose. It was not the archdeacon who had taught her that it would not be her duty to take disgrace into the house of the man she loved. As he looked down upon her face two tears formed themselves in his eyes, and gradually trickled down his old nose. 'My dear,' he said, 'if this cloud passes away from you, you shall come to us and be our daughter.' And thus he also pledged himself. There was a dash of generosity about the man, in spite of his selfishness, which always made him desirous of giving largely to those who gave largely to him. He would fain that his gifts should be bigger, if it were possible. He longed at this moment to tell her that the dirty cheque should go for nothing. He would have done it, I think, but that it was impossible for him to speak in her presence of that which moved her so greatly.

He had contrived that her hand should fall from his arm into his grasp, and now for a moment he held it. 'You are a good girl,' he said—'a dear, dear, good girl. When this cloud has passed away, you shall come to us and be our daughter.'

'But it will never pass away,' said Grace.

—Chapter 57, "A Double Pledge"

The parallels between these two scenes are striking. I have looked for evidence that Trollope might have seen performances of La Traviata, and have found it. From late 1859 Trollope lived in Waltham Cross, a suburb of London, and London productions of La Traviata in 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864 and 1866 are documented. [1]

The 1864 production at the Standard Theatre (see the playbill above) is advertised as using "Boosey's Edition," which had both an Italian and English text. The cast of that production is largely English except for one "Madame Tonenelier" (probably Tonnelier) as Violetta; and although the character names are not Anglicized, my suspicion is that on this occasion the opera was sung in English. The 1866 Italian-language production featured 24-year-old Aglaja Orgeni as Violetta. An anonymous reviewer in The Musical World of April 14, 1866 wrote that "She is young, has a graceful stage presence, abundance of feeling, and unmistakable intelligence. Then in her voice—especially the pure soprano tones, which are at once clear, resonant, and sweet—there is a freshness which of itself is an indefinable charm." [2]

Aglaja Orgeni in 1865, by Anselm Feuerbach

Even more suggestive is the chronology of the composition of The Last Chronicle. According to Mary Hamer, the discoverer of Trollope's working diary for this novel, it was begun on January 21, 1866, and finished on September 15, 34 weeks later. [3] Unfortunately I have not been able to track down a facsimile of the diary, but Trollope's writing habits were generally very regular. Extrapolating from these dates, Trollope would have reached Chapter 57 after about 23 weeks of writing, or in early July—after the spring performances of La Traviata.

There are a surprising number of references to opera in Trollope's work, suggesting a continuing awareness of and interest in opera on the writer's part. Characters in The Kellys and O'Kellys (1848), The Bertrams (1859), Framley Parsonage (1861), and The Last Chronicle itself attend and/or mention opera, as do characters in the later novels He Knew He was Right (1869) and The Eustace Diamonds (1873). A character in The Landleaguers (1883) is an opera singer.

Even if Trollope didn't personally attend the April performances of La Traviata, by the mid-1860s he was an established member of London's literary and artistic circles, and—shortly after the highly successful Covent Garden debut of Mlle. Orgeni—the opera would surely have been in his awareness.

Of course, we may never know definitively whether Trollope had seen performances of Verdi's work (or of Alexandre Dumas' play La dame aux camelias/Camille (1852), on which Francesco Maria Piave based the opera's libretto). But even though the evidence is circumstantial, I strongly suspect that the connection is real.

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1. Sources: East London Theater Archive (http://www.elta-project.org) and RIPM
   
2. "Royal Italian Opera." The Musical World, April 14, 1866, p. 232.
3. Mary Hamer, "Working Diary for The Last Chronicle of Barset," Times Literary Supplement, December 24, 1971, p. 1606.

Having It Both Ways: Bollywood Contradictions

"The culture industry endlessly cheats its consumers out of what it endlessly promises."

—Adorno & Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment

In one view, commercial movies are part of a vast culture industry intended to shape popular consciousness so that it conforms to the needs of modern capitalism. And clearly, this is true: to take an obvious example, what is product placement but an advertisement not only for a particular brand, but for consumerism as a whole? The culture industry derives profit from, in Adorno and Horkheimer's words, the "producing, controlling, disciplining" of our desires.

From another perspective, popular movies reflect the longings, aspirations and anxieties of their audiences. And clearly, this is also true: if they didn't, they wouldn't be popular. Of course, if those longings, aspirations and anxieties are created by the culture industry in the first place, the feedback loop is neatly closed. Perhaps too neatly: the culture industry is not so monolithic or univocal as it is portrayed by Adorno and Horkheimer, and popular desires, while clearly manipulable, do not always perfectly coincide with the interests of the ruling class.

Perhaps this is a reason why movies often seem to embody mixed messages. They can uphold tradition while insisting on the inevitability of change; they can extoll the virtues of simplicity while acting as advertisements for upscale consumer goods. Like most of us, perhaps, Bollywood movies often want to have it both ways.

What follows are brief discussions of two Bollywood movies (of of dozens that could be possible illustrations) that simultaneously represent markedly ambivalent points of view about moral codes, ethical dilemmas, social anxieties, and personal choices.

The obedient rebel: DDLJ

Of course, the obedient rebel of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride, 1995) is its hero Raj, played by Shah Rukh Khan. Raj is a thoroughly Westernized NRI: he wears black leather jackets, drives fast cars, and drinks beer. In a famous scene early in the film he cons a six-pack out of London cornershop owner Baldev (Amrish Puri); according to Anupama Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (British Film Institute, 2002), in an early draft of director Aditya Chopra's script Raj was instead seeking condoms.

Raj seems to represent everything that the traditionalist Baldev despises and fears. To protect his daughter Simran (Kajol) from the baleful influence of boys like Raj and the society which produces them, Baldev has arranged her marriage back in his village in India with a man she has never met. But the summer before her marriage Simran is allowed to take a monthlong Eurail holiday. On that trip she meets Raj, and they fall in love. Raj follows Simran back to India and arrives at her father's village in the middle of the wedding preparations. Both Simran and, ultimately, her mother Lajjo (Farida Jalal) urge Raj to elope with her. But the Westernized rebel Raj instead wants to dutifully seek Baldev's approval: "I'll take you from here," he tells Simran, "only when your father gives me your hand in marriage."

It is Raj's insistence on fulfilling the forms of patriarchal tradition that drives many DDLJ viewers up the wall, and some reject the movie for its apparent endorsement of those patriarchal values. In a recent Masala Zindabad podcast, Beth memorably calls DDLJ a "patriarchal ball of crap."

But I think DDLJ is more complicated than that. While Raj disdains certain forms of authority—early in the movie we see him flunking out of college—he asserts the legitimacy of others, such as filial respect and love. Raj is shown to have a very close relationship with his own father, Dharam Veer (Anupam Kher), who convinces Raj to follow Simran to India. Family is important to Raj, and eloping with Simran would cut her off from her family forever. As he says to Simran, "How can you run from your own people?"

This isn't the only time Raj puts Simran's interests (or, at least, what he sees as her interests) ahead of his own. During their summer holiday he has the opportunity to have sex with a very drunk and apparently willing Simran, but he refuses to take advantage of her inebriated state. The next morning Raj makes teasing suggestions about what happened the night before, but when Simran becomes hysterical (she doesn't remember what happened, or didn't), he suddenly becomes serious: "I know what you think of me. You think I'm a wastrel. But I'm not scum, Simran. I'm a Hindustani, and I know what honour means to a Hindustani woman. Not even in my dreams can I imagine doing that to you." Again the Westernized rebel embraces Indian values.

Raj embodies ambiguity in other ways. As Anupama Chopra points out, Raj disregards the traditional divide between men's and women's roles. He is seen sitting in the kitchen with the women of Baldev's household, serving food to the wedding guests, and even observing Karva Chauth (a fast that married women undertake ostensibly to insure their husbands a long life, and more directly as a sign of their love and devotion). In one of DDLJ's many famous songs, "Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna" ("Put on your henna"), Raj dances over a bridge separating the women and men of the wedding party, and, grabbing a veil from one of the women, dances among them as though he were one of them:

I also love how, when Raj sings "Keep your eyes downcast," Simran looks straight into his eyes.

So DDLJ and its hero Raj both subvert and uphold patriarchal codes of honor and woman-as-male-property. Despite the manifest injustice of a father insisting that his daughter marry a man she doesn't know, or love, or feel the slightest affinity with, Raj tells Simran, "Our parents have raised us with love and can decide for us better than we can." And in the end, Baldev finally gives his consent and the lovers—symbols of West and East, the modern and the traditional—are united. They, and we, have it both ways.

The anti-abortion feminist: Kya Kehna

Like DDLJ, Kya Kehna (What Is There To Say?, 2000) can be seen as both endorsing and subverting patriarchal authority. Priya (Preity Zinta) gets pregnant by the self-involved and unreliable Rahul (Saif Ali Khan). Her father and mother (Anupam Kher and Farida Jalal) go to Rahul and beg for him to marry Priya to restore the family honor.

Marriage to the womanizing narcissist Rahul might restore the family honor, but it would clearly result in misery for Priya. This is one of several occasions in the film (written by a woman, Honey Irani) where conformity to conventional morality, enforced by the father's authority, is ostensibly upheld but emotionally undercut. Marriage to Rahul is the last thing we want for Priya.

Rahul has no intention of marrying, of course, and he and his awful mother (Naveet Nishan) suggest instead that Priya have an abortion. But Priya wants to keep the baby, despite the profound personal cost. So the film can be seen in a way as anti-abortion, since abortion is advocated by characters who either forfeit or never possess our sympathies. On the other hand, it's clearly Priya's choice to keep the baby, and so the film can also be seen as powerfully advocating a woman's right to choose.

Priya and her family are ostracized, as becomes painfully obvious when her elder brother marries and no one shows up to the wedding celebrations. (What at first seems like some gratuitous slapstick at the beginning of the movie—Priya gets drenched from head to toe in mud when trying to hitchhike home from college—turns out to carry symbolic resonance when she becomes "unclean" in the eyes of the community.) Facing the loss of his family's standing, Priya's father disowns her, symbolically shattering the chair she sits in at family meals and barring her from the house. He's clearly in the wrong, although our responses of shock and dismay are complicated by the fact that the father is played by the immensely sympathetic Anupam Kher. Once again we are encouraged to take a highly critical stance towards his enforcing of conventional morality. While no one directly challenges his authority, ultimately he is convinced by the rest of the family to go after Priya and ask for her forgiveness. Patriarchal authority is restored, but only with the active consent and support of those who are supposedly governed by it. The family (along with Priya's loyal friend Ajay (Chandrachur Singh)) then vows to defy the community together (song ends at 1:57:03).

Towards the end of the movie, Priya faces that community and make a very difficult speech in the face of strong disapproval. She defends her out-of-wedlock pregnancy by invoking, not her right to love whom she chooses, not her sexual autonomy, but the sacred vocation of motherhood—the one value that can never be questioned in a Bollywood film. She thus defends her radically unconventional choices by embracing the most hallowed convention of all: the role of Ma.

Priya's courageous stand leads ultimately to not one, but two proposals of marriage. Thus her potentially radical challenge to patriarchal authority and social conformity is ended by her reintegration into the structures of marriage and family. But we haven't quite returned to our starting place; as in DDLJ, patriarchal authority and institutions are restored only because they are fundamentally changed.

The contradictions of these films are part of their fascination and richness. As Anupama Chopra writes of DDLJ, "It offers, to both men and women, to everyone who faces the terrifying uncertainties of new freedoms and the unpredictable future, a vision of the present which combines the both stability of the old order and the enticing choices of the new."

Berkeley Festival of Early Music

This past June we attended the Boston Early Music Festival and saw three wonderful performances; you can read about them in my earlier posts.

If all goes well, in June 2012 it will be the turn of the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition (the two festivals alternate years). As a foretaste of the sort of delights which will be offered in 2012, an excellent radio program on the 2010 Berkeley Festival has been produced as part of the series America's Music Festivals. The program features nearly two hours of glorious music from the concerts in complete performances. To listen to this and other programs in this series you can go to the AMF website; that website also offers a list of radio stations nationwide that are broadcasting the series.

The Berkeley Festival & Exhibition is sponsored by the San Francisco Early Music Society, Cal Performances, and the vocal group Magnificat, among others. All of these organizations have announced outstanding 2011-2012 concert seasons; if you live in the Bay Area or are planning to visit this year take a look at their concert schedules.

Thanks to the Magnificat Blog for alerting me to the AMF series.

The Victorians and Bollywood: Lark Rise to Lagaan

In Lagaan (Land Tax, 2001)—set in the Indian countryside during the late 19th century—Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) challenges the crack cricket squad of the occupying British with a rag-tag group of villagers:

So desperate are the villagers for a victory that caste differences must be ignored. All of the diverse talents of the village must be united to achieve the goal of defeating the hated British and relieving the village from the ruinous land tax.

Things aren't going well, and the village team is losing by a huge margin, when their final and best batsman steps up to the wicket:

Aamir Khan as Bhuvan

Can the outcome be in doubt?

In Season 4, Episode 5 of Lark Rise to Candleford (2008-2011)—set in the English countryside during the late 19th century—Daniel Parish (Ben Aldridge) challenges the crack cricket squad of the local aristocrats with a rag-tag group of townsmen and hamlet-dwellers:

So desperate is Daniel for a victory that class differences must be ignored. All of the diverse talents of town and hamlet must be united to achieve the goal of defeating the hated aristos and relieving Daniel from the ignominy of losing a previous match when the head of the aristocrats' team cheated.

Things aren't going well, and the town-hamlet team is losing by a huge margin, when their final and best batsman steps up to the wicket:

Sandy McDade as Mrs. Margaret Brown

Can the outcome be in doubt?

Bollywood and the Victorians

In Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage (1860), Lord Lufton, the heir to Framley Court, has fallen in love with Lucy Robarts, the sister of a local clergyman. Lucy is aware, though, that Lord Lufton's mother has other plans for her son: she wants him to marry a woman with money and social position. Lucy knows that Lady Lufton will strongly disapprove her as a potential daughter-in-law.

So when Lucy learns from her brother Mark and his wife Fanny that Lord Lufton intends to come to the house the next day in order to propose to her, she is dismayed:

"He must not let Lord Lufton come here to-morrow."

"Not let him!" said Mrs. Robarts. Mr. Robarts said nothing, but he felt that his sister was rising in his esteem from minute to minute.

"No; Mark must bid him not come. He will not wish to pain me when it can do no good. Look here, Mark;" and she walked over to her brother, and put both her hands upon his arm. "I do love Lord Lufton. I had no such meaning or thought when I first knew him. But I do love him—I love him dearly;—almost as well as Fanny loves you, I suppose. You may tell him so if you think proper—nay, you must tell him so, or he will not understand me. But tell him this, as coming from me: that I will never marry him, unless his mother asks me."

In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Brave Heart Will Take the Bride, 1995), Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) has fallen in love with Simran (Kajol) while on a Eurail holiday. Simran's father has arranged her marriage back in India with a man she's never met. Raj follows Simran to India, and finds the village where her wedding preparations are taking place. In one of the most famous shots in Indian cinema, Simran rushes to Raj's arms through a vast field of flowers, and pleads with him, "Take me away from here." His response:

"Main tumhe bhagakar ya churakar le jane nahin aaye hun. Bhale meri paydaish England main hui ho par hun main Hindustani. Main yahan tumhe apni dulhan banane ke liye aaya hun aur tumhe yahan se le jaoonga tabhi jab tumhare bauji khud tumhara haath mere haath main denge."

(I haven't come here to elope with you or to steal you. I might have been born in England but I am Hindustani. I've come here to make you my bride. I'll take you from here only when your father gives me your hand in marriage.)

Clearly Anthony Trollope was a fan of DDLJ.

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DDLJ quotes taken, with slight modification, from Anupama Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (British Film Institute, 2002)