If I could choose one word to describe early American opera after my listening to John Bray’s The Indian Princess and Raynor Taylor’s The Ethiop, it would be, without a doubt, “hokey.”
I chose John Bray’s The Indian Princess in hopes that my knowledge of Native American culture would prove useful. Unfortunately, once I started listening to it, I was
immediately taken aback by what I found instead. The sound is not at all inspired by Native American Music as I was expecting, but instead felt like a mix of American robustness and operatic elegance. When looking at American opera’s history, the reason for this unconventional mix became clearer.
American opera in the 1820s was just beginning to wean itself from English theatre to create its own style because the generation of actors was the first generation born and bred in the New World. One of the rising styles in theatre, beginning with Rousseau’s Pygmalion in 1770, was melodrama. Melodrama was later defined by nineteenth-century American theatre historian Charles Durang as “this mixed drama of words and ten bars of music.” This limit on the length of the music was seemingly ignored by J. N. Barker (libretto) and John Bray (composer) with their composition of The Indian Princess in 1822, which took to a form that more resembled a European opera. This experimental piece was then named an “operatic melo-drame”. Operatic melo-drame, as its name implies, is a combination of opera and melodrama.
The Operatic stylistic features in this operatic melo-drame are its inclusion of arias, recitative, and use of a singing chorus. Stylistic features commonly found in melodramas also found in The Indian Princess are stereotype characters and sentimental and/or terrifying plots. The operatic melo-drame was also the first work to have stage direction written out along with the music. The need for this is most apparent in the “Dialogue Quartetto”. The scene takes place on an English settlement, as a rogue by the name of Robin attempts to seduce Alice, the wife of the yeoman, Walter. Robin and Alice are being watched Larry, an Irish adventurer and Walter (lyrics found in the Cd’s booklet):
Robin: Mistress Alice. Let me taste the bliss – (attempts to kiss her)
Alice: Taste the bliss of this, (slaps his face) Saucy Robin!
The music is light and Baroque-like, by being neutral with its emotion. However, it also has a tinge of playfulness. This playfulness is mostly formed in the snappy dialogue of Robin and Alice, with Walter and Larry’s interjecting comments.
The music throughout seems to not play any role, except in supporting the lyrics. Even in the overture, the music feels light and without substance, with a simple melodic line played by the strings, supported by other instruments. The sound descends into only basses, and then is followed by a burst of sound. It gave me the image of tiny, unstable bubbles being blown through the air, then collecting together and weighing each other down, then splatting ungracefully on the floor. It seemed even shakier when the vocals entered:
Alice: Jolly comrades, join in glee,
Chorus it right cheerily, (etc.)
Alice’s declaration of glee is operatic and sudden, and seems too heavy for the instrumental accompaniment. The vocals become heavier as the chorus joins, which is simultaneous with an increase of volume from the orchestra, but does not seem supported enough.
Overall, I did not enjoy Bray’s The Indian Princess. I believe the reason for my not enjoying it was was a mix of expecting something with Native American undertones and being disappointed, and then having the instrumental writing to be considered secondary. Perhaps it’s because I am so used to hearing operas in foreign languages, and it feels strange to be able to gleam a story through the lyrics. For whatever reason, it was not what I would consider “canon material.” Something that I must keep in mind while listening to early American music is that these are composers who are just beginning to explore their new heritage and creating their own style.
So maybe I will choose a new word to describe early American opera: “undeveloped.” It’s not necessarily terrible, but the American style in this opera is simply too immature to be anything great. And if John Bray’s works can be considered a forerunner for American Greats such as Copland and Gerschwin, then he’s all right in my book.
