There is a long list of operas under the names _Cleopatre_ and
_Kleopatra_ in Clement et Larousse's _Dictionnaire Lyrique_, and in
Riemann's _Opernhandbuch_, but it is doubtful if a single one of them
can be said to be founded on Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_.
There seems material in it for hundreds of operas, but no one seems to
have been inspired to write them.
+Sir Henry Bishop+ has certainly written an "Epicedium," or funeral
dirge, for the end of the play, for the production at Covent Garden;
but though no author's name save Shakespeare's appears on the
title-page, I can trace no text of Shakespeare's in this "Epicedium."
It was produced in November 1813, and Grove's _Dictionary of Music and
Musicians_ does not mention it. It was sung at the end of the play,
and is for chorus, orchestra, solo tenor and baritone. The first and
second choruses are laments of the soldiers over Antony's death; then
the solo baritone tells the chorus not to be ashamed of shedding tears,
and the chorus sentimentalise over his bravery and generosity. The
tenor sings of how he (Antony) was deserted by Mars and Neptune, and
tells them to bury the lovers together. The final chorus is quite
cheerful. Everyone seems pleased with the monument that has been
erected, and "the shout of warriors thunders o'er the tomb." It is not
a very dignified production, and I should not have paid much attention
to it but for the fact that so little has been written musical on this
subject that I thought some of my readers might be interested by this
slight and incongruous work.
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+K. H. Graun+ in 1742 composed an overture to this play which is, I
think, the earliest known work on the subject. The only available copy
of the score is in Berlin, and, at the time of writing, rather
difficult to get at. Graun was born in 1701, at Wahrenbrueck, Saxony,
and is one of the few celebrated composers who were famous operatic
singers before they were composers. His oratorio _The Death of Jesus_
takes the same place in Germany as Handel's _Messiah_ does here in
England.
+August Enna+, a Danish composer, wrote an opera founded on
Shakespeare's play, which was produced at the Royal Opera House,
Copenhagen, in 1894; but, with the exception of the overture, none of
it has been performed in London. The overture was played under Sir
Henry Wood by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on July 6, 1912. The opera
was not a success in Copenhagen, in spite of the popularity of the
composer and the natural sympathy he would receive from his
compatriots. The critics said that he was obviously too much under the
double influence of Wagner and Verdi, and, though admiring his
prodigious technique in orchestration, gave him otherwise but faint
praise. Enna was born May 13, 1860. He was largely self-taught; but,
with the help of Niels Gade, won the Ancker Scholarship, a sort of
Danish "Prix de Rome," which enabled him to study in Germany and
acquire a considerable technique--a useful possession for a modern
grand-opera composer.
+Rodolphe Kreutzer+, whose violin exercises have driven thousands of
amateurs nearly to suicide, composed a "Grand Historic Ballet" on
_Antony and Cleopatra_, which was produced in Vienna, but the date is
as uncertain as the work's connection with Shakespeare's play. It
would seem impossible to anyone who has seen or read the play not to
have been influenced by it to a certain extent, and as Kreutzer was
born in 1766 he may have seen or read some translation; but he does not
appear to have gathered {3} the slightest glimmer of the tragedy of
Antony and Cleopatra, and he was content to compose a whole series of
numbers, all equally banal, not one of them suggesting for a single
moment either of the great lovers or the surroundings. The only
redeeming feature of a long and tedious work is that there is no
attempt at Wardour Street Egyptian music.
+Hector Berlioz+ made his third unsuccessful attempt on the Prix de
Rome with a cantata on this subject. Though not founded on a scene or
scenes from Shakespeare's play, it was undoubtedly inspired by the
poet. Berlioz describes the action as follows:--"The subject was,
Cleopatra after Actium; dying in convulsions, she invokes the spirit of
the Pharaohs, demanding, criminal though she be, whether she dare claim
a place beside them in their mighty tombs. It was a magnificent theme,
and I had often pondered over Juliet's 'But if, when I am laid into the
tomb,' which is, at least in terror of approaching death, analogous to
the appeal of the Egyptian Queen." Berlioz himself says: "I think it
deserved the prize." And I am sure it did; but the Grand Prix was not
awarded that year, so that the composer had to wait twelve months
before winning the coveted honour. He afterwards used the music,
unchanged, for that curious but interesting work _Lelio_.
"The Vision of Cleopatra," a "Tragic Poem for Orchestra, Soli, and
Chorus," words by Gerald Cumberland, music by +Havergal Brian+, is
inscribed to the Southport Triennial Festival, who gave it its first
performance. Though not an actual setting of a scene or scenes from
this play, the work owes much to Shakespearian inspiration. For
instance, though Antony and Cleopatra belong to anyone, Iris and
Charmian, who appear in this work, are essentially Shakespeare's
creations. This "Tragic Poem" is scored for a very large orchestra,
and two choruses, one large, the other small. In addition to the usual
full modern orchestra, there are two extra _ad lib._ horn parts, making
six, and four {4} trumpet parts. For the sake of "Oriental colour,"
the percussion list is so unusually heavy that I must quote it:
glockenspiel, tympani, bass drum, side drum, triangle, castanets,
Indian drum, gong, large cymbals, and small cymbals--rather a healthy
lot when they all get going! The work opens with a slave dance,
_allegro con fuoco_, and is marked double _pianissimo_. After a few
introductory bars (twelve), the dance proper begins, still very softly
and in a curious syncopated rhythm. According to the composer's
directions the dance grows "gradually wild and riotous," then comes a
slower passage marked "yearning," followed by a long _stringendo_
passage leading to the climax, "wild and uneven"; this presently dies
away, and Iris and Charmian have a long duet, the chorus occasionally
breaking in, telling how the "Queen is sick for Antony," and how "once
more
Venus and Bacchus meet, and all the world
Stands still to watch the bliss of living gods."
The music here is very difficult; the rhythm changes often, every other
bar, as does the key; the intervals are strangely unexpected, and the
singer can look for no help from the orchestra. A passage marked "In
regal martial style" ushers in the lovers, and we have a long vivid
duet. Cleopatra sings a lengthy mystic solo, which is followed by an
ominous chorus, at the end of which Antony seems to have died, for
Cleopatra sings a very powerful dirge for him:--
Now all is finished, all is done,
My world is dead;
And he whose glory shamed the sun
Lies shamed instead.
These lips that frenzied him with love
Have death bestowed.
The Finale is marked "Marche Funebre," and is a short chorus,
dirge-like in feeling, rounding up the work effectively. It is a very
interesting composition, difficult and most complicated, very restless
and disjointed, to most {5} ears singularly unmelodious and
unsatisfactory, yet, at the same time, full of novel effects, and to
that extent certainly worth study; but I suspect that none of it ever
got on the Southport barrel organs.
Unfortunately, I cannot get hold of +Dr Ethel Smyth's+ overture of this
name, but Mr J. A. Fuller-Maitland, in his _English Music in the
Nineteenth Century_, writes: "Ethel Smyth's genius lies in the
direction of strong and even virile work; her overture 'Antony and
Cleopatra,' given at the Crystal Palace and the London Symphony
concerts, showed that she understood all the resources of the
orchestra, and that she was no amateur." The last six words seem
hardly necessary. The composer has since proved her worth in her two
operas, _The Wreckers_ and _The Boatswain's Mate_.
+Schubert's+ setting of "Come, thou monarch of the vine" is not so
successful as his "Who is Sylvia?" or "Hark, the lark." It is a
straight, robust song, mostly in unison. There is a quite unnecessary
second verse added by one "N. N." Other but not important settings of
these words are by William Linley, 1815, for solo boy and male chorus;
Bishop, 1837, for three male voices; and Weiss, 1863, for bass solo.
+Michael Balling's+ music for Frank Benson's production of _Antony and
Cleopatra_ contains, among other very good music, a baritone song to
these words, with male chorus. Unfortunately, he did not write an
overture or _entr'actes_, but his Caesar and Antony marches are full of
contrasted character, and his "Rose Procession" for the last "Gaudy
Night" is really beautiful. Sir Henry Bishop set these words to a
S.A.T.B. quartet and full chorus, and by repeating each line several
times, and most of the words pretty often, has made quite a long and
uninteresting number out of it.
+Thomas Chilcot+ in 1745 published a setting of these {6} words for a
tenor voice. It is a good florid song, with a running accompaniment
for strings. The composer omits the fifth line of the lyric for some
reason I cannot understand. Surely the poem is very short as it is.
In setting it he certainly seems to have found it so, as he repeats
several sentences. The line he cuts makes rather a good refrain--"Cup
us till the world goes round"--and most composers make their effect
here.
+Miss Frances Allitsen+ has composed for Madame Clara Butt a "Scena";
the text chiefly from Shakespeare, the words of the aria by Thomas S.
Collier. It is supposed to be the death scene of Cleopatra, and the
words are a sad jumble of odd lines taken from here and there. The
music is very pretentious, and obviously not written round Cleopatra,
but round Madame Butt's exceptional voice. The prayer to Isis and
Osiris, with its un-Shakespearian rhymes of "supplication" and
"desolation," would sound quite right with small verbal alterations in
any Methodist chapel. The aria is vocal and to a certain extent
melodious in a "ballad concert" manner, but it is utterly lacking in
dignity. A long recitative follows in which nearly every note has an
accent on it; Cleopatra applies the asp to a _tremolo_ accompaniment,
and finally dies, singing a series of accented high notes, as if the
asp were hurting a good deal; and a few bars of minor chords bring the
work to a close.
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