Opera: The Art of Dying by Linda Hutcheon, Michael Hutcheon (review)

Book Reviews Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon. Opera: The Art o f Dying. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2004. Pp. 239. u.s. $27.95' cloth. I’ve always been grateful to opera for dramatizing my periodic movement from life to death, and for making death seem the higher ecstasy. Now I am interested in the opera of driving a car, the opera of taking the subway, the opera of deferred gratification, the opera of massage parlors, the opera of sunset at the piers, the opera of whisky, the opera of silence, the opera of palm trees, the opera ofbathtubs, the opera of the daily Splash of eau de cologne, the opera of inanition, the opera of Stupefaction, the opera of amnesia. —Wayne Koes'lenbaum, Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics One could argue, simply for argument’ s sake, that opera—despite the fact that there aren’t many mothers there; despite, moreover, that most of them make Joan Crawford look like Mildred Pierce—is really about maternity.1 Opera, that is, could be said to both touch upon and, in essence, concern the sorrows, if not the joys, of its few good mothers: what such women renounce to have children in the first place; what they renounce to raise 1 Whysofew,you ask?Probablybecausemothers are plotimpediments.We couldn’ t have the vicarious thrill offemale abjection with Mom there to keep tragic—or, as Linda and Michael Hutcheon argue, not so tragic—heroines out oftrouble. Why so evil? (Marcellina would marry Figaro, her own son; Norma would kill both her children; Azucena reallydoeskillthem; and the lesssaidaboutthe Queen ofthe Nightthe better.) Probably because—even apart from the art form’ sfairytale conventionality—most operas are by men withissues.ButI’ m notreallyinterestedinexploringthesereasons,exceptto saythat some missing opera moms get daughters into trouble: Antonia’ s mother, in Les Contes dHoffmann, has the girl sing herselfto death; Isolde’ s provides the fatal love potion. Book Reviews | 217 them; what happens when children renounce, or, worse yet, predecease them.2 Take the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten, a sunnier version of Die Zauberflôte’ s,Queen. (Hofmannsthal liked to think ofDie Frau ohne Schat­ ten as Die Zauberflôte, and ofDer Rosenkavalier as Figaro.) For this wouldbe mom, both compassion and reproduction—or shadow-casting—signify humanity. And according to Strauss in a letter to the librettist, her first human cry should be rather like that of a mother in childbirth. But it isn’t. It’ s a high B-natural, sung on the word “help.” (“Only his eyes cry out for help!” [“Sein Auge nur schreit um Hilfe!”].) The all-too-human Sister Angelica doesn’t get to mother anyone either. Yet this Puccini heroine both lives and dies for an absent, illegitimate son. Her cry upon first mentioning the boy is, in fact, rather like that of a mother in childbirth. (She shouts “my son” [“mio figlio”]. The stage direction is gridato; the line: “I can’t promise to forget my son” [“Non posso offrire di scordare mio figlio”].) Her cry upon learning of his premature demise is even more so. (She shouts “ Ah!” The direction is gridato lamentoso.) And when Angelica kills herself shortly thereafter, she’ s forgiven by a woman called “the mother of all mothers”—the Virgin Mary. Madame Butterfly commits suicide too, of course, but it’s a relatively ambiguous, possibly unforgivable action. On the one hand, she’ s making room for a stepmother through whom the boy called “Sorrow”can access his father. On the other hand, she’ s traumatizing him. The unnamed woman in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, an opera presented from her unnamed son’ s perspective, does get to mother him. But she’s not up to the disciplinary part of the job. The ones who are are various objects and animals he’ s abused—a bat in particular, who complains of 2 Another male-dominated art form, the Broadway musical, digs a bit deeper into both the joys and the sorrows. (Straight critics blame this on American “momism.” Gay ones, like D. A. Miller, are a bit subtler.) Consider, for example, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, Julie Jordan in Carousel, Anna Leonowens in The King...