THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG: Which comes first, style or size?

Most reduced-orchestra editions of operas, mine included, try as much as possible to respect and maintain the original work’s tone color and instrumental allocations. I.e., a wind solo remains allocated to that instrument, brass passages remain in the brass (however much you have to rejigger things given the forces to hand); string passages remain in the strings, etc.

This isn’t too hard with much of the standard opera repertoire - and certainly those works  considered prime candidates for reduced forces - which uses a fairly straightforward orchestral palette and reasonably sized forces.

The operas of Richard Strauss however, and particularly Elektra, present a real challenge in this regard.  Strauss's use of the orchestra is based on an inherently traditional conception: it's just that it's so much bigger and used so much more complexly.

A typical opera orchestra consists of two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two to three trumpets, three trombones, a bass brass instrument (tuba or cimbasso); timpani and possibly some other percussion, a harp and around 26 strings. So a total of around fifty players. Up to the early nineteenth century the brass section would probably have been four players total and a harp would have been rare. By the mid nineteenth century it becomes more common to find the winds expanded to threes with doublings in each family, the harp is ubiquitous and the percussion section has evolved, taking the total orchestra up to around sixty. With Wagner's Ring orchestra as his template, Strauss blows the above standard out of the water by stipulating the following:

4 flutes (3rd and 4th also piccolos)

3 oboes (3rd also English Horn)

1 Heckelphone

1 Eb clarinet

4 Bb clarinets, 3rd and 4th also A clarinets

2 basset horns

1 bass clarinet

3 bassoons

1 contrabassoon

Total winds: 20

8 horns (5th and 7th also tenor Wagner tubas in Bb, 6th and 8th also bass Wagner tubas in F)

6 trumpets

1 bass trumpet

3 trombones

1 contrabass trombone

1 contrabass tuba

Total brass: 20

2 timpanists covering 8 drums

4 percussionists playing bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, tam tam, 2 pairs of castagnettes, rute, glockenspiel

2 harps (the composer blithely requests that, if possible, these be doubled at the very end of the opera, beginning with Elektra’s dance.  Regrettably I have yet to see this request fulfilled.)

Celesta (optional)

Violins 1, 2 and 3: 8 players each

Violas 1, 2 and 3: 6 players each (1st violas double as 4th violins)

Cellis 1 and 2: 6 players each

Basses 1 and 2: 4 players each

Total: 62

Total: 110

This affords Strauss a hitherto unprecedented panoply of colors, both soloistically and in combinations within individual instrumental families, instrumental sections and across those sections. And the complexity and subtetly with which he deploys it is astounding, particularly in a piece so monumental that fine shading might seem wasted, particularly with the ear principally focussed on the vocal parts.  Yet solo strings tendril their way through already complex, heavy passages.  Here and there a clutch of flutes or double reeds or brass will fleetingly shade a chord.  Clarinets, basset horns and bassoons add a uniquely oleaginous dimension to harmonies already defined by other sections.  Wagner tubas embody the ominous, massive atmosphere of the drama. Then there’s the way Strauss uses his orchestra, expecting a level of individual and ensemble virtuosity that makes Elektra essentially a concerto for orchestra with voices added.  The combination of myriad contrapuntal lines in passages both fast and slow with minute inner details results in the soaring, seething, hyper excitement that are a hallmark of his work. And the increase in size of his orchestras from work to work allows him to give many of those contrasting lines equal weight through doubling and tripling across sections while offering increased opportunitt for filigree and embellishment. Some of those inner lines are the complex web of leitmotifs that are the architecture of Strauss’s scores, and in almost all cases are fundamental to the dramatic-symphonic structure of the composition, particularly in the operas. Meaning these need to be respected and retained. Add to that the complexity of much of Elektra’s harmonic structure, Strauss’s farthest foray in this area, where there’s potentially the question of finding enough instruments to cover all the notes. All of which is to say that the practical question for this project remains: with an orchestra 30 percent the size of the original, how much of Strauss’s ocean of inner detail do you attempt to keep, and what?  How much of his original instrumental coloring - particular with regards to doubling across sections - do you attempt to respect? To what extent does that affect the choice of instrumentation for a reduced-forces version?  If you omit some of that inner detail - if only because of the lack of instruments - is this landmark work inherently depleted, not just in terms of respecting the integrity of the fundental composition but in terms of a work whose effectiveness is generally assumed to be dependent on its orchestral component? The interesting flip side of the question being: might not some of that inner filigree be more apprehensible in a version where it isn't buried under the enormous sonic mass of the 110-piece, brass heavy original? Consideration of this issue inevitably affects the choice of instruments in my edition, particularly regarding the makeup of the string section, which I’ll be exploring in the upcoming posts.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

From the House of Atreus.

AN ACT OF INSANITY

There is a long-standing tradition of creating versions of operas from the standard repertoire for orchestral forces smaller than the original.  Such efforts range from works originally scored for modest forces (Mozart, Rossini, the baroque) to larger fare, such as Carmen and la Bohème.  I myself am the author of reduced-force editions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

These editions play to the strengths of opera companies lacking the means, the space, or both to produce the full orchestra version of a work.  The productions typically utilize sparer sets and costumes, often in nontraditional, intimate performance spaces, spotlighting the kinetic and acting abilities of their performers and elevating the dramatic importance of the performance to the level usually reserved for the music.

The recent proliferation of such companies has seen a concomitant increase in interest for access to parts of the repertoire previously considered out of their reach.  An attempt was even made at Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen with a version of Das Rheingold for eighteen instruments (a project that it would have been interesting to see continued). Yet there remains a part of the canon considered not only so large-scale but technically demanding as to remain the province of only the larger opera houses, amongst which many would no doubt classify most of the operas of Richard Strauss.

So it was no small surprise to me when I was recently approached by one such opera company in New York City about creating a version for severely reduced orchestra - thirty players or less - of Richard Strauss's titanic one act 1909 opera Elektra, based on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play.  

If you know Elektra, you are probably having exactly the same reaction that I did: insanity. Cant be done, and probably shouldn't be attempted. For many of its partisans, Elektra is all about its colossal proportions: situations so epic and emotions so heightened that they can only be depicted by extremes of vocal writing  and an enormous orchestra. Strauss calls for a minimum of 110 instrumentalists instructed to play much of the time  at high volume and and at a level of technical demand that to this day makes the most talented instrumentalist quail. (In comparison, a full strength performance of Mozart’s Figaro would use approximately 40 players, Carmen 55, Aida 60, Boheme 63, not counting offstage instruments.)

The sheer size of Elektra’s orchestra has frequently necessitated the casting of the principal roles with performers whose main responsibility is simply to make themselves heard above it.  Such singers are typically possessed of a physical makeup that mitigates against sustained or heightened physical motion.  The result is that concert performances of the opera have become almost as numerous as stagings, and that stagings have all but devolved into concert performances as the singers able to tackle the score’s demands limit their diegetic involvement and therefore erode the opera’s drama.

But Elektra is first and foremost a drama: arguably one of the most visceral, dynamic dramas ever conceived for the operatic stage. For all the virtuosic brilliance of the instrumental writing and the heroic vocal demands, the manic, kinetic fervor of Strauss' score cries out for physical reflection by the singers.  The composer himself always placed prime importance on the dramatic demands of this role, as witnessed by his stressing to conductor Felix Mottl in preparation for the Munich premiere of the opera that the title role “requires a tragic actress of the first rank.”  Note that his emphasis isn’t on the loudest voice possible, or a singer with a penetrating high C (more on that in a later post), but on the need for an actress.

So is the the full orchestra version then the only way to perform Elektra? In addition to the extreme dramatic situations and Strauss’s interpretation of them via arguably his most complex score, is a huge battalion of instrumentalists mandatory to effectively convey this gruesome yet exhilarating piece?

It’s to explore these questions that I was persuaded to tackle this just slightly daunting project. Why not create an alternative version for smaller orchestral forces that would permit this incomparable work to be performed not only by organizations able to afford the behemoth orchestra, but just as importantly by stage performers of physical makeup and propensity to do more than stand in place and compete with the pit? To physically match the dynamic volatility so rife in the music?

This blog will follow my progress on the score, slated to have its premiere in the summer of 2016 in New York City, with contemplations, questions, observations, challenges, frustrations and achievements, all open for comment.