Antony & Cleopatra

by Leon Ardin

It is easy to dismiss this obscure operatic score on almost any count; its libretto is absurdly naïve, its construction so awkward and ill-suited to its genre, that a glance at its tortured manuscript pages is enough for most serious musicians to categorize it as "off the wall." But I believe it has never been heard, and that perhaps unjustly. It is experimental, from the days of the great experimentalists; it was written during the First World War, and uses free expression of sensuality and eroticism, only paralleled in such contemporary Russian masterpieces as Le Sacre, or perhaps Strauss' Salome.

Antony & Cleopatra, an opera in 4 acts, is supposedly based on Shakespeare's drama, although the resemblance is elusive. The main characters' names, and a shakily translated line or two may echo the great Elizabethan's poetry (Cleopatra says: "La musica è l'alimento delle anime che non vivono che per amare," as close to "If music be the food of love, play on" as we get in this libretto; though why a passage from Twelfth Night should be in this makes about as much sense as anything).

The composer's portrait is the frontispiece, with the inscription: "To Annie Baldwin/ in remembrance of our studies. /Leon Ardin." On the title page, the work is copyrighted 1919, and those who are interested in contacting Mr Ardin should do so "care of the Metropolitan Opera Studios, 1425 Broadway, New York City." In the Library of Congress listing of musical compositions presented for copyright, we see:

"Antony and Cleopatra: an opera in 4 acts based upon Shakespeare's drama, by L. Ardin [of Switzerland, domiciled at New York] 2632. © Mar 5, 1919; D 19896; Leon Ardin, New York."

The music is likened to nothing else of the same time period. Not Debussy, Schoenberg, Saint-Saëns, or Ravel, although elements of all of them seem to appear in the score. It is fiercely modal, and occasionally freely tonal, with some bi-tonal segments. Thickly orchestrated, with many elements occuring on each page, it defies being reduced to a piano accompaniment, and would be terribly difficult to play if it were. Ardin goes to great pains to write out his modes in key signatures which have sharps, naturals, and flats combined. His note to the copyist dictates that all accidentals should be placed before the notes whether in the key signature or not, as musicians are "slow in grasping new scales and other innovations."

The libretto is in Italian and the "diction is written phonetically for vocal purposes." Translating a libretto into Italian is one thing, but it is indicative of the nature of this composer to write it out phonetically, thereby making the text virtually impossible to translate in places, or obscure to the point that one isn't sure if Ardin's Italian is faulty, or the typography obscured. In two places there are English texts set in with the Italian, as though the composer were making an attempt to popularize those numbers for an English-speaking audience. Rhyme and poetic meter are not used as artistic devices except in the song Love of a Rose in Act 4, which is based on a pre-existing English text by Helen Hay Whitney, as noted in the libretto. At best the libretto is naïve, and at times the sentiment of the action is as well. Yet there is rather a primitive, raw quality to the work which seems completely thought out, and which should be given the chance to be heard, if only in a concert setting.

Each act is prefaced with a drawing of what the set is conceived to be, done with the same naive fervor as the rest of the work.

A great deal of dance and spectacle takes up much of the opera's running time. Set pieces, some of which seem almost inappropriate (a skeleton dance? Song about a rose?) invade the score, as though they were written for other occasions. The greater portion of Act One is devoted to an orgy sequence complete with wine-bibbings, erotic dancing, and the unparalleled sight of Cleopatra seducing Antony in front of her court and the general populace of Alexandria. It is unfortunate that the bourdon note of the piece seems to be sung by several characters, for one reason or another, descanting on the phrase "O Antonio!"— rather uncomfortably the same words to a song by Irving Berlin written about the same time.

There are some interesting performance notes before the score which say as much about the composer's character as the work itself:

" PHRASING:
"I. Such accents as > _ . |_| ^ have been found insufficient for the phrasing of my music, and I have therefore invented a system as simple as it is efficient. It is based upon the tone-values of notes in their co-relation within a given phrase or group of phrases, and their comparative tone values are shown by numerals.
"In a given phrase a note marked 1 is always of the first importance and has the greatest tone value within the limits of the phrase or section or division of which it is a part; a note marked 2 is of secondary importance in the same phrase or section or division, and naturally must be played or sung softer than the note marked 1; a note marked 3 is still softer, note 4 softer yet, and so on. Performers are expected to observe these tone-values with the same precision with which they observe a sharp, a natural or a flat.
"Disregard of these tone-values would result in distortions that would five often an entirely different character to a passage than was intended by the composer.
(It should be noted that although it seems simple to assign numeric values to notes, representing their level of relief in the whole picture, there are times when credulity is strained in the score; for example, there are passages in which a rapid series of 16th notes have such numeric assignments, one per each note head, and in an order such as 7, 3, 5, 1, 7, 3, 5, 4, 9, 8. How any performer is to make sense out of that— and if they could, how it would sound in the aggregate, is a mystery, but one which is fascinating to attempt in performance. This is an ambitious piece which is easy to cast aside, but it has a quality about it which impels one to suspend judgment until it is mounted and seen as it was meant to be seen.)

"DYNAMICS:
"II. The number of instruments varies so much, even in our standard orchestras, that to obtain the proper balance of tone, I write the dynamics for the various instruments and groups of instruments in their co-ordinated relations to the whole from the viewpoint of the listener, rather than for the discretion of the various performers. To illustrate:
A passage marked mf for the oboes in the low register would be entirely buried under the intended background of murmuring violins marked p— should every one of the 40 violinists play p from his individual point of view; such a passage will stand out in the orchestral relied in its proper proportions only when the dynamic directions will be applied in their proper co-ordinated relations, that is, the entire group of violins in its total aggregate of sound must sound p and no louder; in other words, the individual players will have to play ppp. The violin part, on the other hand, could not have been marked ppp, because another full orchestra limited to 20 violins might render such a passage (if so marked) so ineffectively that it would be lost in the aggregate.
This illustration proves conclusively that the proper balance of tone can be written correctly only from the viewpoint of the listener, and not from the viewpoints of the numerous performers, each one of whom may have a different idea of the dynamics indicated; what would be p to one might seem f to a Chopin."

"SCALES AND SIGNATURES.
"III. Orchestral musicians being slow in grasping new scales and other innovations, the copyists of the orchestral parts should write the key signatures first as they are in the score and, in addition, repeat all naturals and sharps in flat signatures, and all natural and minor-key sharps in sharp signatures, before every note affected. This of course applies to all clefs."

[Examples follow: in what would normally be the key of A, the f# and c# are canceled by natural signs, but the g# remains. Several more examples, ending with one with two flats and two sharps, being in B-flat major and B minor simultaneously.]

"TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS.
IV. "I am told that this is the first orchestral score of any opera ever published in America." [Although this seems incredible, I do not know of any full orchestral score published before it. It would be interesting to research.] "Under the typographical conditions existing during the war, I had to be my own proofreader, and I alone am responsible for any typographical errors that might have slipped into the plates..."

To the Libretto