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Vincent d'Indy's ‘Drame Anti-Juif’ and its meaning in Paris, 1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Jane Fulcher
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Extract

On 6 June 1920, a work premièred at the Paris Opéra and, unlike others preceding it that season, met with general approbation in the press. Despite reservations, newspapers as well as political and musical journals pronounced the opera sincere, deeply religious, an ‘oeuvre de foi’. The composer–librettist, Vincent d'Indy, must have been both pleased and perplexed by such praise, for he had originally conceived the work as a trenchant political critique. As planned in 1903, the opera was to show, in d'Indy's words, ‘the nauseating Judeo-Dreyfusard influence’ within a legend that accommodated this message.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , November 1990 , pp. 295 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 6 June was, in fact, the date of the open dress rehearsal (the ‘répétition générale’) to which the press was invited and which was treated as the première. The printed score gives 9 June, which indicates that the intended date had to be changed, since press reviews appeared on the 8th. Because of strikes, the first commercial performance or ‘création’ did not take place until 8 December. For a list of journals reviewing the work and their comments, see notes 60–5.

Among the works premierèd with less than enthusiastic response in the 1920 Opéra season were Florent Schmitt's La Tragédie de Salomé, Oldone's Retour and Mariotte's Salomé. D'Indy's opera was eventually overshadowed by the Ballets Russes.

2 Vallas, Léon, Vincent d'Indy (Paris, 1950), 327.Google Scholar D'Indy referred to his opera as a ‘drame anti-juif’ in a letter of 17 September 1903 to Pierre de Bréville. Vallas was a close friend of d'Indy from 1900 onwards, and since d'Indy said very little about the opera himself, Vallas is a most valuable source. His recollections concerning d'Indy's remarks about the opera are often corroborated by other contemporary biographers and friends, such as Cantaloube. During the long period between 1903 and 1915, as d'Indy worked sporadically on his opera, his primary energies were devoted to the Schola and to the polemics surrounding it. His literary endeavours during the period centred on the books César Franck (1906)Google Scholar and Beethoven (1911).Google Scholar

3 See Sternhell, Zeev, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France [Ni droit, ni gauche,[ trans. Maisel, David (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986).Google Scholar Sternhell states that ‘a fascist state of mind was at that time very prevalent … its roots went deep and … its influence was considerable … fascism was then part of the intellectual baggage of eminently respectable people’ (p. xi).

4 On his background and early success in Paris, see Canteloube, Joseph, Vincent d'Indy (Paris, 1951), 9, 20, 23, 35 and 39.Google Scholar As many sources make clear, composers needed to be close to powerful political figures in order to receive the official performances necessary to further their careers.

5 D'Indy discussed the experience in his La Schola Cantorum en 1925 (Paris, 1927), 48.Google Scholar

6 Bruneau and d'Indy were on opposite sides of the debate, Bruneau being the most prominent composer to support the Dreyfusards. On Bruneau's engagement in the Affair, see his A l'ombre d'un grand coeur (Paris, 1932), 113–19.Google Scholar

7 Vallas, (see n. 2), 42.Google Scholar D'Indy's name appears in ‘;La septième liste des adhérents à la Ligue de la Patrie Française’, published in Le Temps, 2 01 1899.Google Scholar The Comité de la Ligue de la Patrie Française published in the same issue its second list of ‘adhérents’, which included the composer Augusta Holmès, the director of the Opéra Comique, Albert Carré, the critic Henri Gauthier-Villars (Willy) and the composer and writer Pierre de Bréville. The ninth list included the Conservatoire professor of music history, Bourgault-Ducoudroy.

In January 1899 Le Temps also published an ‘Appel à l'Union’ by those who desired a reconciliation of the two camps. Among those who signed were the composer and historian Julien Tiersot, Claude Debussy and Gustave Charpentier. The widely circulated ‘Protestation contre les poursuites et les persécutions qui frappent le Colonel Piquart, l'héroïque artisan de la révision’ (142 pages long), consisting of lists collected by, among other papers, L'Aurore, Le Siècle and ‘La Ligue des Droits de l'Homme’, included Alfred Bruneau, the composer Albéric Magnard and (again) Julien Tiersot. I am grateful to Christophe Charles of the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique for drawing these lists to my attention, and for providing me with copies.

8 Vallas, , 50.Google Scholar According to this circle, it was impossible for Dreyfusards to be true ‘artists’, as they were guided by intellect rather than by emotion or true artistic sentiment.

9 Canteloube (see n. 4), 44. On the political hostility of the two institutions, see d'Indy's Schola Cantorum (n. 5), 55.Google Scholar

10 On d'Indy's ideal of the anonymous, self-effacing quality of the medieval artist, see his Cours de composition musicale, Book I, written in collaboration with Auguste Sérieyx (Paris, 1912), 214.Google Scholar

11 As discussed below (see n. 56), the Conservatoire finally responded to the Schola's successful innovations and, with the advent of Fauré in 1905, adopted a more historically oriented approach.

12 See Denis, Maurice, Nouvelles théories sur l'art moderne: sur l'art sacré 19147ndash;1921 (Paris, 1921), 239.Google Scholar

13 Denis, , 158 and 163;Google Scholar for d'Indy's position, see p. 12.

14 Sternhell, Zeev, Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français (Brussels, 1985), 43–4.Google Scholar

15 Sternhell, , Barrès, 23.Google Scholar Denis, like d'Indy, used the term ‘les primitifs’ to refer to pre-Renaissance artists; see his Nouvelles théories, 158.Google Scholar

16 Sternhell, , Barr`s, 44Google Scholar, and Rolland, Romain, Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1908), 273.Google Scholar

17 On d'Indy's visit to Weimar in 1873 and his meeting with Liszt and Wagner, see Canteloube (n. 4), 29. As Canteloube points out (p. 41), before undertaking his first opera, d'Indy read and re-read all Wagner's writings and began to search for traditional French sources as subjects.

18 Auguste Sérieyx was one of the founding members of Action Française's Revue critique des idées et des livres. The paper Action française (09 1908, pp. 257ffGoogle Scholar.) praised d'Indy for his efforts on behalf of the French artistic past, hailing him as the ‘energetic defender’ of the ‘true’ national tradition in music.

19 Lasserre, Pierre, L'Esprit de la musique française (Paris, 1917), 236.Google Scholar The earlier quotations are from the Revue critique des idées et des livres (07–09 1908).Google Scholar

20 Here I differ from Paul's, Charles B. ‘;Rameau, d'Indv, and French Nationalism’, The Musical Quarterly, 58 (1972), 46–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which consistently connects d'Indy's position to that of Action Française.

21 Sternhell, , Neither Right nor Left (see n. 3), 7Google Scholar, cites an article by Pierre Andieu entitled ‘Fascism 1913’, published in Combat in 1936. Andieu describes the ‘coming together, just before 1914, of the outer wing of Action Française and of Sorelian syndicalism, united in their detestation of liberal democratic intellectualism and bourgeois culture’.

22 see Roth, jack, The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980), 117.Google Scholar

23 Roth, , 108.Google Scholar

24 Vuillermoz, Emile, ‘La Schola et le Conservatoire’, Mercure de France (09 1909), 234–43.Google Scholar

25 Vuillermoz, , 242.Google Scholar For a more complete description of teaching at the Schola as opposed to the Conservatoire, see d'Indy's ‘Une école d'art répondant aux besoins modernes’, La Tribune de Saint Gervais (11 1900), 303–14.Google Scholar

26 See d'Indy, Cours (n. 10), 239.Google Scholar

27 Vuillermoz, , 239.Google Scholar

28 On d'Indy's rejection of Meyerbeer, see Canteloube, (n. 4), 17.Google Scholar It occurred shortly after d'Indy's contract with the circle around César Franck (c. 1869), which advocated the models of Bach, Beethoven, Gluck and Wagner.

29 D'Indy, , Cours 196–7.Google Scholar

30 Vuillermoz, , 241.Google Scholar

31 Boureau, Alain, Legende dorée: Le système narratif de jacques de Voragine (Paris, 1984), 7–14.Google Scholar

32 See Vallas, (n. 2), 326. The score was published by Rouart, Lerolle et Cie. (Paris, 1918).Google Scholar

33 My synopsis is based on the French translation of the Legenda aurea published by Editions Rombaldi (Paris, 1942).Google Scholar

34 Vallas, , 327.Google Scholar

35 This idea is developed by Strohm, Reinhard, ‘Dramatic Time and Operatic Form in Wagner';s Tannhäuser’, Proceedings of the Royal Musial Association, 104 (1977), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 The reference is to Conservatory students who supported Debussy.

37 This is a powerful moment of Wagnerian ‘Verdichtung’ or scenic contrast that ‘condenses the drama’, as in Tannhäuser. See Strohm (n. 35).

38 Dumesnil, René, La Musique en France entre deux guerres 1919–1939 (Paris, 1946), 86.Google Scholar

39 For example, Cohen, Gustave, Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre religieux français du moyen âge (Paris, 1926).Google Scholar

40 Vallas, (see n. 2), 328.Google Scholar However, d'Indy's Cours (see n. 10), 202Google Scholar, points out that Fervaal is in three acts, each with three scenes, and instead of interpreting this structure nationalistically, he described the plan as ‘un vaste lied’.

41 The reference to Wagner's use of keys appears in d'Indy's Richard Wagner et son influence sur l'art musical français (Paris, 1930), 48.Google Scholar Vallas discusses tonal structure and d'Indy's symbolic use of keys in some detail, noting the larger movement from B minor to B major, as well as the use of G for Gold. He also lays out d'Indy's diagram of the tonal plan, as does Fernand, Biron, Le Chant grégorien dans l'enseignement et les œuvres de Vincent d'Indy (Ottowa, 1941), 166.Google Scholar

42 These borrowings are analysed and discussed in detail by Vallas, (pp. 336–8)Google Scholar and Fernand, (pp. 171–2).Google Scholar Gregorian themes are used to symbolise the Cross (through a chant that makes reference to it), ‘Prière’, ‘l'Oracle’ and ‘la Mort Chrétienne’.

43 As Vallas, among others, notes (p. 335), d'Indy made musical reference to Bach's Passions and to Beethoven's Mass; Vallas also posits the influence of Debussy's Le Martyr de Saint Sébastien on d'Indy's conception of a modern ‘spiritualistic’ style (p. 341).

44 Where Wagner used the tritone judiciously for its ‘devilish’ connotations, d'Indy employs it repeatedly, together with consecutive perfect fourths.

45 Vallas, , 335–6.Google Scholar

46 The question of French Fascism is, of course, moot, since as a movement its impact was extremely limited in France. While Sternhell posits a seminal role for France in developing fascist ideology, others such as Raoul Girardet stress George Valois's abortive attempt to form a genuine French Fascist movement, as well as the distinctive characteristics of the movement in France and its strong roots in the traditional French Right. Thus, rather than speak of French Fascism, he refers to the ‘phénomène d'imprégnation fasciste dans l'histoire du nationalisme français entre les deux guerres’; see his ‘Notes sur l'esprit d'un Fascisme français 1934–39’, Revue française de science politique (07–09 1955), 530–1.Google Scholar More recently, Joel Blatt has addressed similar issues in ‘Relatives and Rivals: The Responses of the Action Française to Italian Fascism, 1919–26’, European Studies Review (07 1981), 263–92.Google Scholar

47 The anthropological concepts of ‘situating’ and ‘framing’ performances as a vital part of the communicative process is discussed by Baumann, Richard in Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative (New York, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Verbal Art as Performance (Rowley, Mass., 1977).Google Scholar

48 I have explored this concept in the context of nineteenth-century opera in The Nation's Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

49 This was noted, among others, by Boschot, Adolphe in Le Théätre (06 1920).Google Scholar

50 Vallas, (see n. 2), 96.Google Scholar

51 An excerpt from Saint Christophe (undoubtedly the ‘Queste de Dieu’, the ‘symphonie descriptive’ that precedes Act II) had been performed at the (briefly united) Concerts Colonne-Lamoureux on 1 April 1917. Because of financial constraints, it was impossible to mount the work properly during the war years, hence its première as late as 1920.

52 See Mayeur, Jean-Marie, La Vie politique sous la Troisième République (Paris, 1984), 253–4.Google Scholar

53 See Denis, , Nouvelles théories (n. 12), 194.Google Scholar On the post-war trauma in France, see Eksteins, Modris, Rites of Spring. The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (Toronto, 1989), 253ff.Google Scholar

54 Rouché's major concern during the war was to reaffirm the glory and continuing vitality of the French tradition; see his letter to the Ministre de l'Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts, 25 August 1915 (Fonds Rouché, Pièce 107A, Bibliothèque de l'Opéra). This priority led to the performance of a series of collective works, drawing material from the great French masters of the past. These included Mademoiselle de Nantes (with music by Lully, Charpentier and Ceski) and Carême prenant (Lully, Colasse, Desmarets and Charpentier). The Opéra Comique, as usual, performed openly patriotic works, some – such as Le Chant du Départ and La Marseillaise – making specific reference to the French Revolution. See Gheusi, P. B., Guerre et théâtre 1914–1918… (Paris, 1919), 124–30.Google Scholar

55 Vallas, (see n. 2), 335.Google Scholar

56 See Woldu, Gail Hilson, Gabriel Fauré as Director of the Conservatoire National de Musique et de Déclamation 1905–1920, Ph.D. diss. (Yale University, 1983).Google Scholar It is also significant that from 1912 onwards, d'Indy was asked to teach the class on orchestration at the Conservatoire, and was professor of conducting there from 1914 to 1929. In addition, Pierre de Bréville, who taught counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum from 1898 to 1902, directed the class on chamber music at the Conservatoire in 1916.

57 This is especially clear in several articles concerning musical education in the monumental Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire, deuxième partie – Pédagogie, Ecoles, Concerts-Théâtre (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar, co-edited in the 1920s by the Conservatoire professor Albert Lavignac and by Lionel de la Laurencie, a musicologist with clear ‘scholiste’ sympathies. Significantly, it included articles on the Schola by d'Indy himself.

58 As I intend to show elsewhere, these conceptions had a decisive impact on composers such as Milhaud, Honegger, Auric and Tailleferre by the mid-1930s, and can be seen in the works they wrote under the auspices of the Front Populaire.

59 See Bonsoir (8 06 1920).Google Scholar

60 Le Théâtre, 384 (06 1920).Google Scholar

61 Le Figaro (8 06 1920).Google Scholar In view of the changing climate, it is significant that Le Figaro was a pro-Dreyfusard paper at the time of the Affair.

62 Le Journal des débats (8 06 1920)Google Scholar, and Le Théâtre (06 1920), 384.Google Scholar

63 See La Petite Marseillaise (8 06 1920)Google Scholar and Vallas, (n. 2), 335.Google Scholar

64 Even the socialist Populaire de Paris (6 06 1920)Google Scholar was highly laudatory, although not of the libretto's literary quality. It notes ironically that, despite the guarded admiration of Action Française, the work was infiltrated by a ‘socialisme marximum’ (a term apparently invented by the paper) or ‘bolchevisme’. For the perspective of Action Française, see La Revue critique des idées et des livres (07 1920), 105–8.Google Scholar The issue of whether to perform German works during the war, and whether to attempt to expunge German influence, was of course a heated one, dividing the musical world. D'Indy became the most vocal supporter of the faction that did not see German music as a danger, while Action Française, continuing its pre-war rhetoric, became the most vociferous advocate of the opposite position.

65 Only the ‘symphonie descriptive’ that serves as a prelude to Act II remained in the concert repertoire beyond the Autumn 1920 season.

66 See Dumesnil, (n. 38), 136ff.Google Scholar

67 As I shall discuss in a forthcoming study, the theatrical aesthetic of the Popular Front owed a great deal to the model of popular theatre and fête as elaborated by Romain Rolland at the beginning of the century. As opposed to the mythic and ritualistic elements associated with La Légende de Saint Christophe, this aesthetic stressed the popular and familiar, and the participation of the masses in the spectacle. Especially representative, both theatrically and musically, is the version of Rolland's 14 juillet staged in 1936Google Scholar, with music contributed by prominent members of ‘Les Six’. This trend continued in the 1937 Universal Exposition in works such as Liberté, in which – among others – Milhaud, Rolland-Manuel, Tailleferre and Honegger participated, as well as in La Fête de la lumière and La Construction de la cité, with music by Honegger, and Milhaud, Google Scholar.

68 See, for example, Poulain's, Henri ‘Rentrée: avec un collaborater de Vincent d'Indy’, Je suis partout (21 10 1938), 8.Google Scholar

69 See Sérant, Paul, Le Romantisme fasciste: ou l'muvre politique de quelques écrivains français (Paris, 1954), 9–11, 92.Google Scholar