Ella Milch-Sheriff’s opera The Rat
Laughs[1]
The opera The Rat Laughs
by Ella Milch-Sheriff (b. 1954), based on a novel by
The relationship between Holocaust
survivors and their families is also a central theme in many of
The
five-part novel begins in 1999. The child is now an elderly woman living in Tel
Aviv. Her teenaged granddaughter wants to document her story for a school
project. Parts One and Two describe this encounter, respectively, from the
grandmother’s and granddaughter’s view points. The book’s title is drawn from a
legend which the grandmother tells the granddaughter. The first rat, envious of
Man, demanded
the gift of laughter. God responds that he will able to laugh – but only if he
hears another creature “laughing beside you underneath
the ground”. The grandmother imagines that her pet rat tried to make her laugh
in order to force God to fulfil his promise. But the quest is doomed to
failure, given her own inability (then and ever since) to laugh.
Part
Three takes place ten years later (2009). Internet surfers discover a
mysterious website called Girl and Rat, containing a series of enigmatic and disturbing poems, reflecting the thoughts of the child
in the pit. But the website is unsigned; none of its readers know who the
author is, or what experiences inspired the poems. Part Four zooms to 2099. The
Girl and Rat poems, and the myth on the rat’s laughter, have become
popular cultural icons, and the anthropologist Lima Energelli is searching for their origins.
Her research is carried out in secret: Stash, the Anthropological Institute’s
Director, declared that all research
on the past is redundant, even dangerous, and refuses to hear of her findings.
As a last resort,
The libretto transforms the novel’s
fractured story-line into a continuous virtual-reality dream, which
The libretto’s main weakness, in my
view, is in its presentation of the futuristic characters. Stash’s objections
to
Milch-Sheriff’s musical language is decidedly tonal, and projects an overall sense of stylistic cohesion and thematic unity. As the composer writes, “there is a kind of mixture between the musical motifs of all the characters as their lives intertwine”; but as thematic materials move between narrative layers, they are transformed to suit their varying contexts.
In the two opening scenes, the
clearest musical contrast is between the futuristic characters (
Stash often appears, deceptively,
more humane. For example, his brief hymn to oblivion is sung to a calm, lyrical
line – undercut, however, by an insistent, percussive accompaniment.
The robotic characterisation of
Stash and
Initially, the Granddaughter (soprano Claire Meghnagi) does not understand why her grandmother is so reluctant to share her story. She imagines the farmers as benevolent foster parents, and thinks of her grandmother’s survival as proof that miracles are possible. Her naivety is clearly portrayed in her music, which initially contains several cheerful, even perky passages; her faith in miracles is expressed in a bright, mellifluous, major-key melody. Such optimistic outbursts, however, become rarer as the story unfolds.
The Grandmother is portrayed with a different, darker lyricism. Her narrative has its moments of anger, sarcasm and bitterness; most of her lines, however, are “very melodic and mellow, full of sorrow” (Milch-Sheriff). The harsher emotions and more cynical pronouncements are mostly transferred to the girls’ choir, as it sings the poems that represent the Grandmother’s childhood thoughts. Most of these poems are set mono-rhythmically, with bittersweet harmonies – discordant clusters softened by rounded rhythms, slower tempi, diatonic melodies, and refined, gentle sonorities. In some poems, the surge of pain and anger inspires a harsher, defiant musical setting. Elsewhere, Milch-Sheriff strives for the opposite effect:
as the words become unbearable, the music becomes more and more harmonic and even sweet and provides a marked contrast to the meaning, thus amplifying the pain.
This ideal is clearly discernible in the work’s most memorable melody, Maybe the sun doesn’t go up; but it is only released gradually. The Grandmother, unable to recall how long her ordeal lasted, remembers how she thought, at the time, that perhaps the world has come to a timeless end, “and I’m the only one left, but I don’t know it yet”. She initially utters these thoughts in a monotonous, drone-like line, which soon becomes an accompaniment to the lyrical melody, introduced by the woodwinds. The Grandmother herself only picks up the melody when she repeats the poem later, joining forces with the choir.
The ironic use of musical beauty is especially poignant in the two Catholic prayer sequences – the Ave Maria, and the solemn Mass at the church. Milch-Sheriff’s settings of these prayers are almost entirely devoid of discord and harshness, an effect enhanced by her use of the girls’ choir in both cases. In the operatic context, however, this beauty acquires a disturbing, even subversive quality.
The Ave Maria is introduced by the Farmer’s Wife (the mezzo Anat Iny) – a cruel, greedy, inhumane character, for whom murderous anti-Semitism is a sine qua non of Christian piety. Her lines, like her husband’s (the baritone Gabriel Loewenheim), are usually devoid of any melodic content; their music usually moves between the bland and the discordant. Her Ave Maria, however, is an intimate, diatonic melody, almost naïve in its simplicity. The choir and the Grandmother repeat the prayer in its entirety, representing the Girl’s desperate attempt to become a Christian and thereby gain a measure of compassion and humanity from her tormentors. As far as the Wife is concerned, however, the Girl is beyond redemption: when she hands the Girl over to the Priest, she tells him to “slaughter the little Jew with your own hands, and avenge the blood of our Saviour”.
The Ave Maria thus becomes something of a sick joke – a tantalising promise instantly denied. The farmers’ outwards expression of dignified, spiritual piety is contrasted with their cruelty and their vile sense of humour. Milch-Sheriff’s music affirms the beauty of the Christian liturgy; yet this very beauty becomes an integral part of a direct, angry critique.
While the Ave Maria is intimate and flowing, the short Mass setting generates a sense of distant, ceremonial grandeur. It introduces Father Stanislaw (the baritone Alexey Kanunikof) as an authoritative, confident priest leading his congregation. This feeling is disrupted when he sees the Girl: the orchestra plays Maybe the sun doesn’t go up, and the melody is repeated as the choral setting of Miseratur tui omnipotens Deus. The melody becomes a foreign strain – vulnerable, yearning and disquieting – within the ceremonial proceedings.
The Priest retains his ceremonial dignity in his deliberations with the farmers, and even in his God-defying monologue. He gradually abandons this style, however, in his dialogue with the Girl, as he attempts to bring her spirit back to life and restore her faith in humanity (a faith which he has virtually lost): his music becomes more intimate, shedding its impersonal manner in favour of a more flowing vocal line. This reaches special poignancy in his farewell to the Girl, as he prays that “perhaps some day a miracle will happen, and you will find the strength to remember me”.
In the next scene – the opera’s ending – the Priest’s prayer seems to have been fulfilled. The Grandmother has finished her story. In Oded Kotler’s direction, she and her Granddaughter have been watching the pit from the outside; now the Grandmother walks into it, seeking the Girl (i.e., herself as child). As the Granddaughter gropes in the darkness, finally finds her Grandmother (inside the pit) and embraces her, she sings in wonderment: “Grandma, you are laughing!”
The previous scene portrayed the
Girl’s desperate attempts to learn how to laugh; one could find some
consolation in her ability to laugh now. On the other hand, it is not entirely
clear whether this laugh is real or not: it has no direct musical
representation, and therefore remains inaudible. Instead, the glockenspiel and
strings echo a softened version
Thus, even in this moment of potential consolation, Milch-Sheriff largely avoids the major key, with its dangers of saccharine sentimentality and its potential denial of the pain which remains, forever, at the heart of the story. By giving voice to her story, the Grandmother has partly come to terms with what has happened to her, and is now able to reach out to her childhood self, as well as to her Granddaughter. The revival of traumatic memories thus offers a degree of healing and consolation; yet the healing can never be complete.
* * *
The opera was produced by the Cameri Theatre, in collaboration with the Israel Chamber Orchestra. By presenting the work as part of its season, the Cameri Theatre was able to attract an audience who might otherwise avoid opera. Opening to an initial five-performance run in April 2005, its enthusiastic reception encouraged the Cameri Theatre to present a series of additional performances during the summer, including two performances at the Israel Opera House in October, and to incorporate the work into the 2005-2006 season.
The intense, powerfully integrated
production marked the operatic debut of Oded Kotler, one of
But above all, the opera owes its success to the powerful effect of the music itself. In an ostensibly simple musical language, Milch-Sheriff breaths terrifying and inspiring life into the complex and moving libretto, creating a work of remarkable integrity and intensity.
Dr.
[1] I am grateful to Ella Milch-Sheriff and