Man and Boy,
Michael Nyman’s latest opera, is the
first major work to appear on the composer’s
own new label, MN Records. I had the
opportunity to meet Nyman recently to
discuss the recording [interview].
World premiered at
Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2004, this recording
is of the London Almeida Opera production
that soon followed. Reviews of the staged
performances have, on the whole, been
very favourable although some of them
were peppered with patronising swipes
at the music, something that Nyman must
be used to by now. At worst there were
implications that the power of the dramatic
experience was down to the quality of
Michael Hastings’ libretto rather than
to the music. Here’s an example I read
recently: "His jerky vocal lines
seem to serve merely as a device to
put forth Hastings' superb, absorbing
libretto ... In the long run, Nyman
does little more than set the mood and
supply background accompaniment for
the text". This is to stand on
its head the old joke that Peter Greenaway’s
films (e.g., the cult movie, The
Draughtsman’s Contract) were vehicles
for Michael Nyman’s music. That critic,
writing about Man and Boy,
in my judgement was not listening
to the music and certainly not understanding
its contribution to what I think is
a fine opera. Like most successful operas,
Man and Boy is the result of
a fruitful partnership between text
and music: in this case, an active,
creative collaboration between composer
and librettist.
The story is a fictional
one about the real-life German artist
Kurt Schwitters, washed up in London
at the end of the war after internment
by the British, and his relationship
with a schoolboy who he meets on a bus.
The characters are brought together
because both are on the same quest:
that for London bus tickets. Schwitters,
a collageist, needs them for his art
while Michael collects them simply because
he does. So at the same time there is
bonding and mutual lack of comprehension
of each other’s motives. The third main
character, Michael’s mum, provides tea,
love interest and an ear for Schwitters
when recalling the agony of his losses
of the past and fears for the future.
The music of the opera
opens with a haunting, nostalgic theme
of rising seconds and drooping thirds
that switches suddenly, after little
more than a minute, into a short, jaunty
motif that conveys the comedic incongruity
of a boy and an elderly man scrabbling
for the same discarded bus ticket. These
two themes emerge as important leitmotifs
that not only have dramatic contextual
relevance but help to provide the work
as a whole with a musical unity, lending
some symmetry to the two acts which
are otherwise very different.
The construction is
of nineteen short scenes, tempting one
to interpret this as reflecting the
collage nature of Schwitters’ art. Each
one often has a musical rigour of its
own. A frequent practice is to employ
repeating bass lines that clearly derive
from Nyman’s love for the music of Purcell
and specifically of his ground bass
forms. The film music for The Draughtsman’s
Contract, which employs actual bass
lines by Purcell, is a tribute to that
composer. Purcell’s habit was usually
to make his melodies irregularly cross
over the end of a bass line and the
beginning of its repeat. This sets up
a tension between the solid, restrictive
progress of the bass and a melody that
appears to want subversively to free
itself and take off. Nyman does not
employ that method but in The Draughtsman’s
Contract, the screeching soprano
sax of the Michael Nyman Band behaves
analogously, sounding as if it wants,
like an aspiring rocket, to free itself
from the earth-bound bass and head skywards
for the stratosphere.
In Man and Boy,
Nyman wisely abandons the aggressive
forces of the Michael Nyman band and
resorts to something nearer a more conventional,
classical chamber ensemble. This means,
among other things, that the treble,
William Sheldon, does not have to compete
with a soprano sax. It also allows the
voices to float more easily over Nyman’s
textures and to be able to generate
the tensions with the bass that I mentioned
above. For example, when Michael and
Schwitters are riding on a bus and Michael
sings that they should "go to the
end of the line" – there’s an aspiring
metaphor - the dynamic accompanying
music becomes more rooted in simplicity:
harmonically, melodically and rhythmically.
Another example of how Nyman’s procedures
illuminate the text is in a scene where
Schwitters visits Michael in his bedroom.
Compared with Schwitters, Michael, with
his child-like certainties, has his
feet on the ground and his immaculately
tidy room with its neat collections
of tickets, reflects this as does the
music. Throughout the scene there is
a bass line that starts as a whole ten-bar
long ground, strictly repeating at first
then subtly varying as it progresses
(more Handel than Purcell that) without
ever losing its solid, comforting integrity
to the ear.
The three singers perform
with confident magnificence, reflecting
experience gained from the stage performance,
conveying the separate traits and aspirations
of their characters in a way that contributes
to a touching and moving dramatic experience.
Anyone present at the premier in Germany,
where the part of Michael was sung by
a woman, would, I dare say, have found
it difficult to imagine a boy coping
with the part. William Sheldon, in the
company of two experienced opera singers
in John Graham-Hall and Vivian Tierney,
certainly does cope, both vocally and
interpretively.
The instrumentalists
under Paul McGrath are, I believe, experienced
performers of Nyman’s music and this
shows in the dynamic confidence of the
playing. Fans of the Michael Nyman Band,
once they get used to the composer’s
more restrained and subtle scoring in
this work, will be able to revel in
some delicious chamber textures.
The neat booklet contains
fascinating short essays by composer
and librettist on the genesis of the
work. Both men describe the personal
biographical elements that add strength
to the enterprise. The opera text is
published in full although you might
need the eyesight of someone of Michael’s
youth to deal with the small print.
Michael Nyman told
me he thought that the recording should
stand as a musical drama in its own
right and not having seen the stage
production myself I think it certainly
does. "Abstraction is the name
of the game", says Nyman, suggesting
that a major strength of the work is
the way it conveys the psychology of
its characters. That is, I believe,
to underrate the opera’s narrative strength.
I cannot think of a good opera that
has not got that strength. Man and
Boy has, in literary terms, got
a page-turning momentum to it: you want
to know if the man and the boy are going
to meet again, will they come to understand
each other, will Schwitters get off
with Michael’s mum, and so on. This
aspect is not wholly dependent on stage
performance.
I earlier accused some
critics of being patronising about Nyman.
I hope I won’t be accused in turn when
I say that I think this opera represents
a significant step forward in his development
as an opera composer. I, for one, look
forward to sampling the fruit of the
next collaboration between him and Michael
Hastings.
John Leeman
Michael Nyman Band/Paul McGrath 
