David recently tracked down the audio for an operatic adaptation of Perelandra, the sequel to Out of the Silent Planet, and invited Professor Judith Wolfe and Professor John Marr onto the show to talk about it.
S6E30: “Perelandra: The Opera” (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Drop-In
Quote-of-the-week
I think [the libretto is] just stunningly good. It brought tears to my eyes in places… it will be terrific. I very heartily congratulate you
C.S. Lewis
Welcome
Biographical Information
Prof. Judith Wolfe holds a BA in English Literature and Interdisciplinary Honours Studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as an MPhil in English Literature, MA in Theology, and a DPhil in Theology, all from Oxford. She has been a member of the School of Divinity at St. Andrew’s University since 2014 and has intimate involvement in a production of Perelandra: The Opera.
Guest Biographical Information
Prof. John Marr is a Music professor at Santa Ana College in California but he is also a listener, long-time Patreon supporter, and a member of the C.S. Lewis reading group which I ran in San Diego.
Guest Biographical Information
Chit-Chat
–
Toast
- David was drinking a cup of strong Scottish Breakfast tea
- Professor Wolfe was drinking Mystic Monk coffee
- Professor Marr was drinking a cup of Typhoo tea
Discussion
01. “Episode Agenda”
To begin with, David and John will ask Prof. Wolfe about the history of the opera. Then, in the second half, John will lead a discussion about the music itself.
02. “Wolfe and CSL”
Q. What is your own history with C.S. Lewis?
- C.S. Lewis and the Church: Essays in Honour of Walter Hooper edited by Judith and Brendan Wolfe.
03. “Operatic discovery”
Q. How did you discover the operatic adaptation of Perelandra?
- Oxford C.S.Lewis Society
- Donald Swan was the composer and Leon Berger is the executor of his estate
- No man may shorten the way
04. “Opera Genesis”
Q. How did the opera come to be and what was Lewis’ involvement?
- Flanders and Swann
- Michael Flanders
- Donald Swann
- David Swan brought onboard David Marsh (Librettist and Pacifist):
…we shall first have to ask the old eldil [Lewis] for permission
Donald Swan to David Marsh (9th February 1960)
- Lewis submitted his own piece of libretto for the lady and the king, but they had to reject it.
- Perelandra began by Lewis as narrative poetry:
The floating islands, the flat golden sky
An early verse fragment of Perelandra; the form was abandoned immediately afterwards in favour of prose; quoted in Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide (London: HarperCollins, 1996), 220.
At noon, the peacock sunset: tepid waves
With the land sliding over them like a skin:
The alien Eve, green‐bodied, stepping forth
To meet my hero from her forest home,
Proud, courteous, unafraid; no thought infirm
Alters her cheek
- The opera was performed in 1963 around Swan’s piano and Lewis was enthusiastic.
- Swan financed three concert performances in Oxford, Cambridge, and London. It received mixed reviews.
- Curtis Marsh, Lewis’ agent, sold the performance rights to Hollywood, which meant that Swan could no longer have the opera performed. In response he started cutting up the music in an effort to get some small portions performed. Fortunately, these rights have now expired, meaning that it can be performed once again.
05. “Where can I listen to it?”
Q. Are there any recordings of the opera available?
- It is not available commercially, but a limited number of CDs are available. Please contact us for details.
06. “Swan’s inspiration”
Q. What was Swan’s inspiration for the opera?
Perelandra contains one of Lewis’ searching for trails paradise, of the true world that he felt in his bones was ours, but from which we had been disinherited, not only mythically through Adam, but daily through each one of us… I wrote the work under the spell of it, and with the conviction that if we did not have a glimpse of paradise we are living without a limb, without an eye, without a sense, whichever metaphor you care to choose.
Donald Swan, The Space between the Bars
07. “What Lewis heard and saw”
Q. How much of this did Lewis see and hear of the opera? Did he ever see it staged?
Mark Sonders put together the orchestral score.
08. “Original narration?”
Q. In the available recording, there is quite a bit of narration. Is that original?
- Yes, the 2009 version of the opera was about two hours long and the original was three hours long.
09. “Electronic Version”
Q. Was there any attempt to digitise the score into notation software such as Sibelius?
- The choir score is available.
10. “Blessed Be He adulations excluded?”
Q. Why were the Blessed Be He adulations from the book excluded?
- They decided not to use the book’s text and Marsh was pacifist.
11. “Who should we talk to?”
Q. Who should people contact if they wish to produce the opera?
- People should contact The Donald Swan Estate or Professor Wolfe
- Operas in the Sixties Wikipedia Article
- Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass
12. “Other adaptations”
Q. Are there any other musical adaptations of Lewis’ works?
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- BareFace
- Prof. Wolfe is writing a theatrical version of Till We Have Faces
- John is trying to track down an oratorio adaptation of The Screwtape Letters by Carol H. Blanton.
13. “The hand of Maleldil”
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to say about the history of this opera before we move into Part II and discuss the music itself?
–
14. “Entering Part II…”
One must first distinguish the effect which music has on people like me who are musically illiterate and get only the emotional effect, and that which it has on real musical scholars who perceive the structure and get an intellectual satisfaction as well.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to Mrs R.E. Halborson (March 1956)
15. “What is opera?”
Q. What is opera and why do people like it?
- Opera Wikipedia article
- The Magic Flute
- Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century with Jacopo Peri
- Robert Greenberg from Great Courses
- The Paper Nautilus by Gavin Byars
- Michael Nyman composed music for the movies Gattica and The Piano. He also wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
- The Cartoon Classical Canon. Thanks to Cindy Rollins for this list:
16. “Clip: Overture”
Q. Why is the overture not first in the opera?
- Otello by Verdi
17. “Weston to Earth Control”
Q. Is there a link to David Bowie’s Space Oddity?
18. “Swan’s Influences”
Q. What were Swan’s chief musical influences?
–
19. “Clip: Birdsong”
Nowadays, when every avant-garde composer’s ambition seems to be to shatter this auditor’s eardrums with the most original and progressive noise ever created, it is a pleasure to hear a work that is modestly written – merely to elicit an emotional response from an audience. Such a work is SWANN’s opera Perelandra… It is a genuine opera, with a very serious plot, and it is full of arias and choruses and has a deft score… it is unashamedly old-fashioned. I represents the Handle-Mendelssohn tradition, which is the tradition of most unselfconscious British music. A few dissonances appear from tie to time to designate evil. But most of it is as innocent and sincere as Perelandra itself.
Uncredited, The New Yorker (6th December 1969)
20. “Clip: No man may shorten”
- No man may shorten
- Leon Berger playing some of this song prompted the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society to attempt to resurrect the opera. It was also sung as the funeral of Jennifer Swift.
21. “Its place in the canon”
Q. Does Perelandra have a place in the canon?
22. “Movie adaptation”
Q. Would you be interested in seeing a movie adaptation of the opera?
23. “Concluding thoughts”
- John has composed music for The Pilgrim’s Regress and Out of the Silent Planet
24. “Finding out more…”
- Donald Swan Website
- Leon Berger Website. He also wrote this informative article.
- Prof. Judith Wolfe
- Prof. John Marr
