Walter
Baunfels’s The Birds yesterday afternoon at Dorothy Chandler. The first act appropriates freely
from the play by Aristophanes: the story of two men, exasperated by civilization, who
search out the kingdom of the birds. They urge the birds to reclaim their lost
power and glory and found a city in the sky, effectively taking control of
earth and the heavens. It also mimics Aristophanes’s alternating dialog and
arias and choral commentary.
But
Teresus, the liaison in Aristophanes between the humans and the birds, becomes
in Braunfels a generic Hoopoe. And Braunfels’s Birds is set in Never-never
Land, not ancient Greece. He dispenses with all the mythological references to birds, which gives the Greek comedy resonance. And even more important, Branfels dispenses with the topical humour of Aristophanes, and attempts no
analogous 1920s German topical references. He also censors out all the bawdry.
Hence
Branfels ignores the contrast between coarseness and lyricism that generates
the unique texture of Aristophanes. All that remains in a bit of fooling,
provided by the Loyal Friend, and that amounts to nothing. There were moments
when I wondered if it wasn’t going to suddenly turn into a satire, but it never
did.
What
it was, was a very mild romantic fantasy, with show-off vocals and
opportunities for stage spectacle. I felt I was seeing and hearing a demonstration of the living pop tradition that extends from operetta, through Hollywood, and
down to the Las Vegas review.
The
second act completely jettisoned Aristophanes. It began with a duet between Hopeful
and the Nightingale, which was musically overwhelming, and visually stunning,
with giant projections of fast-motion flowers blooming all over the stage. It
was spectacular, but it was hard to discern the point. Was it a love scene? Was
it a scene of evil enchantment? A hallucination? All three?
This was followed by a very unwanted ballet of birds, which was thankfully interrupted by the
arrival of Prometheus. Prometheus appears in Aristophanes, briefly, to rally
the rebels against the gods. But here, in look and sound, Prometheus was
essentially Jochanaan out of Strauss’s Salome. And instead of rallying the
birds, he denounced the bird city as an impious rebellion. I kept waiting for
the Wren to goose him, and the farce to begin. But instead everyone took his
warning to heart, and, after a storm of flashing lights, they all humbly begged
Zeus’s forgiveness and promised to be obedient in the future.
That
Braunfels wrote as an appeal to humility and peacefulness while Europe was
destroying itself in World War I requires no explanation. He wrote within a
tradition that was not modernist: The Birds is a pop anti-Rise and Fall of the
City of Mahagonny. The fact that it’s a novelty for us is a testimony to the pernicious
endurance of Nazi cultural policies that banned it after it’s initial popular
success. Fortunately Braunfels was able to outlive the Nazis, and perhaps his
work has too.
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