An Opera by Joshua Ruan

TRAUMNOVELLE

(an Opera by Joshua Ruan)

List of characters and general notes:

(Some characters will perform more than one role in order to blur the line between reality and dream-like fantasy worlds latent within ‘Traumnovelle’. Others can be used as extras where called for. The orchestra is medium sized, the score in C and moving between short score and full score as needed.)

Principal Characters:

Narrator/Master of Ceremonies - Aristocratic Courtier (counter – tenor)

Fridolin (Viennese doctor – tenor)

Albertine (Fridolin’s wife – soprano)

Nachtigall (Fridolin’s college friend – tenor)

Daughter/Girl Pierrette (extra)

Maid/Mizzi’s Madam (extra)

Danish Officer/Dr. Roediger (Marianne’s husband)/Porter (baritone)

Mizzi/Dream Girl/Nurse (mezzo-soprano)

Marianne/Baroness Dubieski/Dream Princess (Soprano)

Court Counsellor (extra)

Mr. Gibiser (costumier)/Dr. Adler (morgue doctor - Bass)

(extras include and double-up as Fraternity students, Prostitutes, Judges and Masked Revellers.)

Act 1

Scene 1

(The opera opens with the narrator – Master of Ceremonies in the Masked Ball scenes – at stage left introducing the story in a grandiose manner, elegantly dressed in the fashion of ‘turn of the Century’ Vienna.)

Narrator: Life and Masks…Harmony and Discord…Reality and Fantasy…Truth and Lies… from these august themes spring both virtues and vices. Yet, it is just such a tension that propels our lives forward both internally and outwardly upon the great stage of life. Tonight we will witness just such a dynamic and judge for ourselves the heaven and hell that our protagonists create for themselves… I give you…Traumnovelle!

(Curtain opens as music begins. The daughter is playing with a doll’s house as fridolin puts down a newspaper and Albertine is talking on the telephone)

Recitative (music punctuating):

Fridolin: Nine o’clock – time for bed. (to daughter as Albertine hangs up telephone, resting on the chez long)

Albertine: Quite right, young lady. (turning to daughter affectionately)

(enter maid who takes daughter by hand to kiss each parent goodnight and leads her offstage – right leaving Fridolin and Albertine staring at the doll’s house in silence)

Fridolin: We were lucky last night to have so escaped…(continuing, quite clearly from a previous conversation with Albertine earlier)

Albertine: Escaped from what?

Fridolin:…the masked ball yesterday evening…becoming entangled within the charade itself.

Recitative (cont.):

Albertine: Oh yes. Quite. (pretending not to understand)

Fridolin: Did any of the characters there take your eye?

Albertine: (nervously) What ever do you mean, Fridolin?

Fridolin: Before we met again in the refreshment room for oysters and champagne…we were separated for a while.

Albertine: Nothing, really. I talked with some Polish sounding stranger.

Fridolin: A Polish stranger…did he reveal himself to you?

Albertine: No. We both kept our masks on the whole time. And you?

Fridolin: I was taken aside by those two dominoes dressed in red, whom I was unable to identify, even though they were remarkably well informed about various episodes from my hospital and student days.

Albertine: How dangerous!

Fridolin: Quite.

(lights fade and the previous nights masked ball begins coming to life as Fridolin and Albertine put on masks lying next to them unnoticed and two red domino characters take Fridolin as the Polish stranger too emerges and begins to dance with Albertine – lighting and set changes need to visibly convey dark movements and extras are visible in masks and costumes in the unusual party setting that has emerged as if from within Fridolin and Albertine'’ living room itself.)

Masked Ball - (Orchestral music and voices – occasionally one or two in fragmentary ‘singspiel’ can be heard above the din. Fridolin and Albertine torment each other through their flirtations with others.)

Narrator: Clearly, their masked partners had excited them both raising dark and perilous storms. Desires driving them towards the irrational winds of fate. This night, however, was not the first time they had been stirred by a whiff of freedom, danger and adventure. Albertine and Fridolin now sought to coax admissions from the other which might articulate the fundamentally inexpressible confession of a truth capable of releasing them from the tension and mistrust that were slowly starting to become intolerable.

(Masked Ball dissolves leaving Fridolin and Albertine back in their salon living room slightly dis-oriented to begin their confessions.)

Double Aria (Fridolin and Albertine) –

‘Lost in Dreams’ and ‘A Young Girl’

(begins with their fantasiescoming out as sung fragments in singspiel picked up from the fragments heard at the masked ball weaving together and culminating in the double aria, proper. During these spoken, half-sung and sung confessions the memories evoked in the recitative and lyrics come to life on stage with the characters themselves becoming dreamlike, visual fragments.)

Albertine (half spoken and half sung in the manner of Deutcher singspiel): Do you remember a young man last summer on the Danish Coast who had been sitting with two officers at a table next to us one evening? And who, on reciving a telegram during the meal, had promptly taken a hasty leave of his two friends?

Fridolin (singspiel): What about him?

Albertine: That same morning I’d seen him once before as he was hurrying up the stairs with his yellow suitcase. He’d glanced at me as we passed – our eyes couldn’t help meeting. I felt moved as never before…

Aria – Part 1 – ‘Lost in Deams’

Albertine (sung): The whole day I lay on the beach

Lost in dreams (refrain)

Were he to summon me

Or so I believed

I wouldn’t have been able to resist.

I thought myself capable of doing anything.

I felt I had as good as resolved to relinquish you,

The child,

My future.

‘Lost in Dreams’ (cont.)

Yet at the same time –

Will you believe this?

You were more dear to me than ever

Lost in dreams (refrain)

I wore a white rose in my belt

And you yourself said

I looked very beautiful.

Lost in dreams (refrain)

I toyed with the idea of

Stepping over to his table

And saying to him

Here I am

My long awaited one

My beloved

Take me away.

Lost in Dreams (refrain)

Fridolin (singspiel): And then?

Albertine (singspiel): Nothing more. All I know is that next morning I awoke feeling nervous and distressed. Don’t question me further Fridolin, I’ve told you the whole truth.

(silence)

Albertine (spoken): You too had some sort of experience on that beach. Of that I’m certain…

Fridolin (singspiel and expressed resentfully):You’re right. In the morning, often very early before you got up, I would wander along the shore, yet, early as it was, the sun would always be brightly shining over the sea. One morning I suddenly became aware of a female figure, putting one foot in front of the other and stretching her arms behind her.

Aria – Part 2

‘A Young Girl’

Fridolin (sung): A young girl (refrain with Albertine sometimes echoing)

No more than fifteen

Her loose

Blonde hair falling over her shoulders

And on one side across her tender breast

A Young Girl (refrain and Albertine shocked)

Gazing down into the water

She slowly inched her way

With lowered eyes

A Young Girl (refrain)

Her whole body began to tremble

Looking at first frightened

Then angry

And finally embarassed

A Young Girl (refrain)

All at once

She smiled.

A ravishing smile

Indeed there was a welcoming twinkle in her eye

A Young Girl (refrain)

A gentle mockery

She lightly skimmed the water

Between us

With her foot

A Young Girl (refrain)

Stretched her young, slender body

Exulting in her beauty

Evidently proud and sweetly aroused

At feeling my ardent gaze

Upon her with

Lips half open and

Eyes aflame.

A Young Girl (refrain)

Fridolin (singspiel as if returning to reality from a dream): Involuntarily I stretched out my arms towards her; there was joy and abandon in her gaze. All at once she shook her head vigourously and signalled that I should withdraw. I hastily resumed my walk without turning round – not out of consideration, obedience or chivalry but because I’d felt so profoundly moved, for transcending anything I’d experienced before. I was on the point of swooning.

(silence)

Albertine (singspiel): And how often did you follow the same path?

Fridolin (singspiel): All I’ve told you just happened to occur on the last day of our stay in Denmark. Even I don’t know how things might have developed under other circumstances. And you too, Albertine, shouldn’t inquire any further.

Recitative (spoken)

Albertine: In future we should always tell each other things like this at once.

Fridolin: (nodding silently)

Albertine: Promise me.

Fridolin: Do you really doubt that? In every woman – believe me in every woman with whom I thought I was in love, it was always you that I was searching for. I feel this more deeply, Albertine, than you can ever understand.

Albertine: And what if I too had chosen to go exploring first (they disengage hands) Ah, if only you all knew.

(silence)

Fridolin: If we only knew – what do you mean by that?

Albertine (harshly): More or less, my dear, what you imagine.

Fridolin: Albertine, is there something you’ve never told me?

(Albertine nods with a strange smile, looks straight ahead and toys with mask)

Fridolin: I don’t understand. You were scarcely seventeen when we became engaged.

Albertine: Yes Fridolin, a little over sixteen. And yet – it was not my fault if I was still a virgin when I became your wife.

Fridolin: Albertine!

Albertine (half singspiel and half spoken): It was shortly before our engagement, Fridolin, when one beautiful summer evening an extremely handsome youth appeared outside my window, which looked out over broad extensive meadows. We chatted away together, and I thought to myself what a sweet delightful young person he is – he would only have to say the word this minute, the right word, and I would go out and join him in the meadows and follow him wherever he desired, into the woods perhaps, or it would be lovelier still to go out on the lake together in a boat – and that he could haveeverything he desired of me. But he didn’t say the word, this charming youth; he just kissed my hand, and the next morning asked me whether I would be his wife. And I said yes.

Fridolin: And what if that evening someone else had happened to stand outside your window, and had said the right word: for example –

Albertine (interrupting): Anyone else could have said what he liked, it would have been to little avail. And if you hadn’t been the one to stand before my window then the summer evening wouldn’t have been so lovely either.

Fridolin (sneering): That’s what you say now, so at this moment you may believe it. But –

(knock at salon door)

Maid (entering salon and announcing): The porter’s wife from the Court Counsellor’s residence has come to fetch the doctor. The Court Counsellor is again feeling very ill.

(maid silently whispers in Fridolin’s ear and leaves).

Albertine (annoyed): Are you going out?

Fridolin: I have too. The Court Counsellor has had another heart attack and is in a bad way. I promised to come at once.

Albertine: (sighs)

Fridolin: It shouldn’t be too bad, I hope. In the past three grams of morphine have usually helped him over the attack.

(maid enters with his fur coat and he kisses Albertine on the mouth and forehead absentmindedly – slow fade to black)

Narrator: …and so began Fridolin and Albertine’s dark journey into the soul of the night.

Jealousy growing through an absence of love?

Or an absence of love growing through jealousy?

Whatever the case; the masks were beginning to slip away!

End of Scene 1

ACT 1, scene ii

(Curtain opens to reveal a period Viennese bedroom cast in shadows, elegant and of a wealthy family. A green-shaded lamp hangs from the ceiling and the feeling to be invoked is of being inside a Klimt painting – see set suggestion montage. Centre stage there is a large four poster bed with the dead Court Counsellor propped up on pillows, motionless. A large washbowl is on the bedside table and the Court Counsellor’s daughter Marianne sits on the foot of the bed, her arms hanging limply by her sides in utter exhaustion. The room is full of old furniture and a Klimt like painting is on the wall.)

Recitative (spoken): (Fridolin knocks and enters room as Marianne looks up. He approaches the head of the bed, mechanically feels the dead mans temples, then his wrists. Fridolin shrugs his shoulders and puts his hands in his fur coat pockets, looks around the room and then rests his gaze on Marianne.)

Fridolin: Well now, my dear young lady, you were scarcely unprepared for it.

(Marianne stretches her hand out to him and he takes it standing over her)

Fridolin (cont.): How was the last, fatal attack?

Marianne: He’d been quiet all day. Eaten well and then gone to bed. However, he woke with a start and called out ‘help’! I went to him and found him trying to get dressed, looking nervous and pale. I calmed him and then got him to get undressed and return to bed. I then went to prepare him some tea. When I returned… (putting hands over mouth)… then I called for you Fridolin.

(Fridolin draws up a chair seating himself opposite Marianne and consols her)

Fridolin: Marianne, in his last hour he wouldn’t have hardly suffered at all. Have the relatives been informed?

Marianne: Yes, the porter’s wife is already on the way to my uncle, and in any case Dr. Roediger will be here soon…My Fiance. (looking up at fridolin who nods)

(cont.)

My father, the Court Counsellor, was a man of distinction. Was he really only fifty-four years old? Of course, his many worries and disappointments, his wife forever ailing, and my brother gave him an enormous amount of trouble.

Fridolin: What, you have a brother?

Marianne: Yes, certainly! Surely I’ve told you of him once before. He is now living abroad somewhere (looking and pointing at painting on wall) Look, there’s a picture he painted at fifteen. (Fridolin tries to make painting out) It shows an officer galloping down a hill. Papa always pretended not to notice the painting but it is a good painting. My brother might have gone a long way under more favourable circumstances (Marianne now excitedly rambling) For twelve years now my brother has been away from home, indeed I was still a child when he suddenly disappeared. It was four years ago at Christmas since we last received news of him from some small Italian town (Marianne now ‘other-worldly) …Strange…I’ve forgotten its name.

(silence)

Fridolin: At least as things stand, Marianne, you won’t have to remain in this apartment much longer (she looks up) …No doubt your fiance will soon be offered a professorship; the situation in the humanities is in that respect much more promising than with us.

Marianne: we’ll be moving in the autumn, he’s received an offer from abroad.

Fridolin: Ah…(opens windows for some air) The fresh air will do you good, I hope. It’s become quite warm, and last night-

Marianne: (startled): Last Night!

Fridolin (continuing): …Last night the snow in the streets was still half a metre deep.

(Marianne begins to break down and cry putting her head in her hands muttering ‘last night’ over and over as Fridolin stretches out his hand and strokes her forehead. Suddenly she slips off the bed, prostrates herself at his feet, flings her arms around his knees and presses her face against them. She then draws back her head and sings the aria ‘Last Night’. Fridoling punctuates her aria with sung comments.)

ARIA – ‘Last Night’

Marianne (sung): Last night (refrain)

I loved you

I don’t want to leave here

Even if you never came again

And I were never to see you any more

I would still want to live close by you

Last night (refrain)

Fridolin (sung): Please get up (as a repeated refrain while Marianne sings and together in unison on ‘I loved you’)

Marianne (sung): Last night

Iloved you

I don’t want to leave here

Even if you never came again

And I was never to see you anymore

I would still want to live close by you

I loved you

Last night

Recitative (singspiel and gesturing towards corpse):

Fridolin and Marianne: Suppose he can see everything. Suppose he can hear everything. Suppose he can hear. Suppose he can. Suppose he’s lying in a cataleptic trance. Yes, perhaps he’s in a cataleptic trance. Perhaps everyone is only seemingly dead for those first few hours after passing on…after passing on.