A
musical tragedy in two parts and one interlude based on a play by Nikos Kazantzakis
(1915/1929/1940)
Cast:
Protomastoras Tenor
Smaragda Soprano
Singer Soprano
Mother Alto
Master Baritone
Old
Man Bass
Orchestra: 3 3 4 3 - 4 4 3 1 - Timpani,
Percussion, 2 Harps, Strings, and 6 trumpets on stage
Double mixed choir and
ballet
The Masterbuilder is
Kalomiris’ first opera (or «music drama» as he would prefer to call it),
completed in 1915 and revised twice in 1929 and 1940. The play by Kazantzakis,
by the same title, on which it is based, is in its turn based on a Greek folk
tale about a bridge over the river of the city of Arta.. According to the tale
and the related folk song used by Kalomiris at the start of Scene A,
the bridge would never stand unless a human sacrifice was made.
Kazantzakis and
Kalomiris expand the tale into a multi-symbolic drama of remarkable depth and
power. The symbolism seems to refer to a number of psychological dialectic
pairs such as success and failure, creativity and love, love and duty, freedom
and marriage, father and daughter, love and death etc and to include their
social projections in the juxtaposition of the conservative, god fearing
«Harvesters» and their «Village Women» to the creative, daring «Builders» and
«Gypsy Women», of the ambitious Protomastoras himself, a hero born free in a
torn up tent, to the jealous Old Man, threatening everybody with inevitable
death and to the proud Master who demands and orders a sacrifice, not knowing
that it concerns his own daughter. The Singer is in love - pure unconsummated
love - and is an artist. The Mother appears to know the dark secrets of the
soul and the inevitable rules and laws of life. Smaragda, by far the most
important and most difficult role, will resolve all the contradictions. She
will walk, in love, to death, proud of her sexual union with Protomastoras,
respecting her father’s orders, serving Protomastoras high ambition and
society’s need, challenging the mean Harvesters and Village Women, obeying the
rules Mother has set out.
A «good listener»
should however approach the work simply as a «story» about people made of flesh
and blood and not as a socio-psychoanalytical puzzle. The impact then of the
drama is tremendous.
Kazantzaki’s poetry
and Kalomiris’ music also seem to underline the modern Greek (as opposed to
Classical or Byzantine) character of the situations, despite the universality
of the theme. Kalomiris dedicated his work «To the Masterbuilder of Great
Greece, Eleftherios Venizelos», the founder and leader of the liberal party and
a national leader, whom he supported with fanatic devotion. This was a time when
the realisation of Greece’s national aspirations, the «Great Idea», which
included the liberation from Turkish rule of Smyrna (Izmir), Kalomiris’
birthplace, and of Constantinople (Istanbul), where he went to school, seemed
imminent. Thus one of the symbolisms of the bridge that was clearly in
Kalomiris’ mind, when writing Protomastoras, was building Great Greece.
The 1916 premiere, in
Athens, divided a public used to much simpler and lighter entertainment. It
gave rise to both enthusiastic reviews and produced both enemies and ardent
admirers.
The vocal and
orchestral writing present formidable difficulties and although the best Greek
artists were used in some of the performances which took place during
Kalomiris’ life (including soprano Maria Callas and conductor Dimitri
Mitropoulos) it is doubtful that the overall standard of playing and singing of
those days, allowed a really adequate performance.
The Protomastoras has not been performed
since 1951. After World War II, interest in Kalomiris’ music seemed to
diminish. In the 1980s, twenty years after his death, there was a revival of
interest and many of his works were recorded for the first time. The Protomastoras was forgotten during the
last 40 years, partly because the post-war wave of modernism seemed to push
aside all «national» music, partly because of the formidable difficulties of
the score, partly because Greeks needed to forget so evocative a composer as
Kalomiris, so closely associated with the «Great Idea» which turned out to such
great disappointment, in 1922, when a million Greeks were evacuated from
Kalomiris’ birth place, Smyrna, set to fire by the Turks.
Hari Politopoulos,
1990