BJÖRK (b. 1965) and others
Björk’s ‘Vespertine’ – A Pop Album as an Opera
Opera based on the album Vespertine (2001/2018) [77:51]
Ji Yoon (soprano), Scientist
Aki Hashimoto (soprano), Doppelganger
Simon Oesch (boy soprano), Cloud Boy
Raymond Ayers (baritone), The Illuminated Man
Children’s Choir of Nationaltheater Mannheim, Stones
Women’s Choir of Nationaltheater Mannheim, Landscape
Orchestra of Nationaltheater Mannheim/Matthew Toogood
rec. 2018, Nationaltheater, Mannheim
Lyrics / libretto not included
OEHMS CLASSICS OC978 [77:51]
Somewhere in cyberspace, there is an ancient audio clip of a pre-teen Björk Guðmundsdóttir singing the 1976 Tina Charles hit ‘I Love to Love’, accompanied by an acoustic guitar. It is recognisably the voice of an individual who has one of the most instantly recognisable voices on the planet. One assumes at the time she would have harboured those childhood dreams of (pop) stardom, but given the singular creative force she would eventually become, one also wonders if she had designs on a more serious musical direction. Fast forward a decade. Her band The Sugarcubes landed as if from nowhere with their extraordinary first single, ‘Birthday’. It has the trappings of rock and roll, for sure; there is a bass, drums, guitars, after all. But listen to the detail of the sound: the strummed guitar doodlings, the tinkly percussion, THAT voice, the sophisticated imagery and allusion in the lyric – this is, without question, serious art music.
In order to make any sense of this recent Oehms issue, I obviously had to give the original Vespertine album a play through, the first time in a few years I had done so. Turning any ‘pop’ album (as it is dubbed on the Oehms disc’s sleeve – I suspect Björk herself would be suspicious of this descriptor) into an opera is presumably going to involve a degree of risk, but one as quietly revolutionary and completely unique as Vespertine? There is a limitless amount of material about the history, context, planning, reception, interpretation and meaning of this record on the Web if readers are not familiar. To my ears, Björk’s fourth solo album is rendered pretty inimitable by the questing, deeply personal, erotic lyrics and the extraordinary arrangements of harps, beats, choirs, strings, celestas, music-boxes, Björk’s singular voice, choirs of Björk’s singular voice, and so on, and so on. I was truly grateful for the opportunity to play it again, not least to hear again the unforgettable climax towards the end of the fourth track, ‘Undo’ (I also felt pretty guilty for neglecting this really remarkable record for so long). The songs on the original Vespertine (Björk conceived it as a more ‘domestic’ small-scaled album than its three predecessors – although its monumental, primordial sounds paradoxically sound epic and cinematic) pertain to intimacy in general and sex in particular – in the case of songs like ‘Cocoon’ and ‘Harm of Will’ rather explicitly so. Together, though, listening to the album straight through, they merge into a coherent musical experience as intensive (and intense) as any I know.
The song arrangements and additional music for the opera were compiled by a Hamburg based collective called “Himmelfahrt Scores”. Its three members are Jan Dvořák, Roman Vinuesa and Peter Häublein. The ‘opera’ was premiered at the Nationaltheater in Mannheim exactly a year ago, in May 2018. The arrangers set themselves the difficult task of creating a score devoid of studio craft, electronic manipulation, computers and the like. Björk’s ‘vocalisms’ are rendered by four soloists (including a boy soprano) and two choirs, and the orchestra is extended to include exotica such as glasses and sandwich wrapping paper. So how does Vespertine, with words (and sounds) as deeply personal as ’Björk’s, work as an opera, essentially a communal, social mode of expression?
Well, the listener needs some help here. The booklet provides a couple of brief essays. While the second focuses on the technical challenges of arranging Björk’s laptop inspirations for a group of solo singers, choirs and a large orchestra of acoustic instruments, the first examines the background to the release of the original album, muses on its artistic goals and merits, and explains the broad conceptual approach of the Danish artist collective Hotel Pro Forma and its director Kirsten Dehlholm to constructing a ‘narrative’ for this project. Ultimately they devised a plot that addresses the respective impacts of mythology and science on human development. I quote:
“…the story…of a solitary scientist, researching the origins and the future of life in a lifeless landscape of stones at the end of the world. In her seclusion, she has created a double, together with whom she deals with everyday working routine. Until one day she creates real life, a ‘cloud boy’, and her world gradually falls to pieces, a radiant, mythical being appears and even the landscape begins to sing.”
No, I did not find this much of a help either. It is even less easy to imagine it without the visuals – while the booklet contains a few nice pictures, frankly this concept went way over my head.
So on a straight CD we are left with the music. Sounds of wind and storm are projected over a glacial, repeated brass chord in a representation of chaos, before a soprano sings what seems like a literal transcription of the opening song ,‘Hidden Place’, over a choral and rather agitated orchestral accompaniment. At first it seems astonishing how well this music works for these forces. The textures broaden out to encompass harp, flutes and tuned percussion. The choral arrangements occasionally resemble (harmonically and texturally) the Steve Reich of The Desert Music. ‘Cocoon’ is performed very operatically by the other soprano (The Doppelganger, I suspect, but there is no help from the booklet). This is a very discreet, restrained arrangement – I am really not sure how a song with such unambiguously erotic connotations fits this particular narrative, but in this guise it sounds rather anodyne and constrained. It lacks the bite and passion, the sheer weirdness and honesty of the original. Here it evolves into a duet between the two sopranos. That is certainly not to say the orchestration is not skilful or tasteful, it is, but ‘Cocoon’ was surely never meant to sound so conventional. There is a gentle, odd, tinkly interlude, and we then hear the familiar tune of ‘It’s not up to you’ from the Bjork-like voice of the boy soprano in tandem with one of the principals. There is a flavour of harpsichord. It again sounds a bit too buttoned-up, but by now the orchestra and choirs of the Mannheimtheater are into their stride, and project an arrangement that is at the very least refined and respectful with great conviction. The aforementioned ‘Undo’ somehow sounds simultaneously Debussian here in its solo and orchestral writing, and Britten-like in the choral material; this I could never have imagined! It ultimately goes to show what an extraordinarily natural and gifted composer Björk is, and how utterly facile and empty phrases like ‘Pop Album’ are. Probably the best-known song on Vespertine is the glorious ‘Pagan Poetry’. It is sung beautifully here, initially as a duet between the two sopranos; the harp and celesta-led orchestration is ravishing, and far more cinematic than domestic. For the first time we hear the imposing but tender tones of the American baritone Raymond Ayers, the ‘Illuminated Man’ – before the famous ‘I love him / She loves him’ epilogue which sounds quite magical in this arrangement for soprano and childrens’ choir. Later on, the song ‘Sun in my Mouth’ (this is actually a poem by e e cummings) passes utterly convincingly as art-music, and here makes use of all three adult voices. The setting of ‘Heirloom’, a duet between baritone and one of the sopranos, is also a qualified success. ‘Harm of Will’ wavers between the tentative and the lush but the solo soprano and choral voices soar. The flexibility/ambiguity in many of Björk’s lyrics do leave the listener wondering who is actually vocalising the thoughts, which means that they do seem to work as multiple voice numbers. The final song ‘Unison’ draws the entire company together, a big finale before a brief, rather touching instrumental coda, composed by the collective.
One cannot fail to be impressed by the quality of the sound on this disc. The orchestra play with total conviction and produce a beautiful noise, while the singers, solo and choral are uniformly excellent. I’m afraid I was quite unable to distinguish between the two soprano voices or characters without a libretto (or more detailed synopsis) – its omission is one of the most serious failings of this Oehms issue. Of course, this seems to me like one of those events which absolutely cries out for a DVD or a Blu-Ray presentation; there is a real frustration in only really being able to experience half the story here. And to be absolutely honest, while there the music is unquestionably seductive and is performed here with such unbridled commitment, it lacks the key ingredient which makes the original Vespertine the masterpiece it undoubtedly is – Björk’s own voice. For that reason alone I am off to listen to it again.
Richard Hanlon
