# Struggling With Messiaen´s Eccentric Opera



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Hello opera friends,


The euphoria in the reviews of Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise over the past decade I found puzzling. The enthusiasm in articles that came to my attention was curiously unrestrained, the critics unfazed by aspects of the work I found insupportable. 


I must say straight out that while I am not a particular admirer of Messiaen's music, I have appreciated and enjoyed some of it. But this operatic score of four hours-plus running time is NOT good music. Neither is the text very good, either dramatically or poetically. For those and other reasons, Saint François d'Assise doesn't work as opera. A case can be made that it is really a staged oratorio. In either category, it properly should have line, dramatic or lyric, an overall continuous thrust to carry it for the five-hour duration. It would need such a structural design were it only a 20 or 30-minute work.


This absence of coherent structure at the macro level of the entire work repeats the problem that happens at the micro level of the music. The music itself lacks coherent structure. For most of the work, the music has no real line. It proceeds for the most part in impulses, little phrases, often disconnected, one following another with no musical connection. Often a motive is repeated again and again, unmodified. During the second of the two performances I attended, I counted forty recurrences of the identical four-note descending signal, hammering at the listener.


Such a device or mannerism comes from no musical necessity and it surely loses whatever dramatic effect the motive might bear inherently. The music has very little sense of necessity that it must proceed in the direction it proposes.
The fitful, discontinuous nature of this score is reflected in the difficulties Messiaen has preparing the big cadences to close scenes. Again and again, the music will arrive at a strong cadence in the major key, a full stop, giving an unmistakable but wrong impression that this is it. Then, after a pause, music will just start up again, and not as a continuation of the previous music, but basically, a new page.... I don't get it.


A great deal is made of Messiaen's orchestration and the color factor. Granted that this is a major feature, but there is no way that tone color can, in a work of this scope, become the primary musical factor. The color mixes per se do not carry this work, nor is there the subtle variation and transformation in the color treatment that can make it fascinating. Certainly Messiaen's indulgence in his love of birds and in creating musical bird call impressions made Act II, Scene 6, “The Sermon to the Birds” interminable, more like a catalog than a sermon. Here he is at his most self-indulgent, the more so for crafting his libretto so as to make the enumeration of all sorts of exotic birds a theological necessity. He was just a bit nutty about the bird thing wasn't he? The dialogue in this scene between St. Francis and Brother Leon about five or six kinds of birds seemed interminable and had so little musical variation or dramatic oomph. Part the difficulty here was that this scene was the climax of two unremitting hours of the second act and was preceded by two scenes that also simply went on too long, mitigating their good points. That encapsulates part of what I felt about this opera: Messiaen obviously became so immersed in his own self-interests that I believe he lost sight of (or perhaps didn't even care about) the forest for the trees.


The chattering of the gamelan of six xylophones for long stretches in this opera was another tiresome mannerism along with the omnipresent keening voice of the ondes martinot, also doubling the melodic line.


Two exceptional scenes of the opera's eight had dramatic strength, profile and continuity:

Act I, Scene 3, “The Kissing of the Leper

and

Act II, Scene 4, “The Angel-Musician.”


The principals interacting with St. Francis, Chris Merritt as the Leper, and Laura Aikin as the Angel, made these scenes compelling. Otherwise, Messiaen ignored the fascinating life of the historical St. Francis and many of the stirring episodes in the development of a character who, in this work, was never made real or human.


Maybe with editing, tightening, more self-discipline, etc., he could have used his extremely colorful musical language and personal style to create an opera (or operas) full of dramatic excitement and intense emotion, neatly shaped and judiciously balanced, engineered to appeal to wide audiences.


This opera has been described in writing as a masterpiece, and as the greatest musical experience of a lifetime. Yes, it did achieve a succès d'estime, and many people were convinced by it, helped I must believe, by the extensive advance discussions in the press and elsewhere. Fine. I'm glad for them, but I still DON'T get it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I disagree, but I support your right to dislike Messiaen's opera as much as you like. Messiaen is one of my favorite composers of the second half of the 20th century, and this was one of the first works of his I listened to in full, so it has a special place in my appreciation of his music.



Cerendy said:


> Maybe with editing, tightening, more self-discipline, etc., he could have used his extremely colorful musical language and personal style to create an opera (or operas) full of *dramatic excitement and intense emotion*, neatly shaped and judiciously balanced, engineered to appeal to wide audiences.


You're looking for the wrong things, and this seems to be one of the reasons why you disliked the work so intensely. Messiaen was a devotee of Wagner, but he loved Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande's anti-Wagner, anti-dramatic constructs just as much, and furthermore, Debussy's music was closer to Messiaen's in both temperament and technique. St. Francois is not dramatic, has no real "plot" if that is construed as a linear series of events building to a climax, and, much like his music, does not develop. If you insist that these things must be present for it to be a proper opera, then you will never grow to appreciate this work, which is more or less static, a series of tableaux rather than a narrative, and the characters of which, moreover, are more types than people from beginning to end.



Cerendy said:


> Neither is the text very good, either dramatically or poetically.


It would never stand on its own as literature, but as an opera libretto, it is better than some. Its structure is inherently related to the music that it accompanies, and I think your problems with them are much the same in both cases.



Cerendy said:


> This absence of coherent structure at the macro level of the entire work repeats the problem that happens at the micro level of the music. The music itself lacks coherent structure. For most of the work, the music has no real line. It proceeds for the most part in impulses, little phrases, often disconnected, one following another with no musical connection.


Boulez once said of Messiaen that he juxtaposes rather than composes. Fine, so be it. But these juxtapositions do, on the macro and micro level, add up to a greater whole in any case, and the repetitive patterning that you noticed is part of that. You are wrong to think that there is no organization behind it.



Cerendy said:


> The chattering of the gamelan of six xylophones for long stretches in this opera was another tiresome mannerism along with the omnipresent keening voice of the ondes martinot, also doubling the melodic line.


I don't remember the ondes Martenot being "omnipresent" myself. It really stood out most during the Stigmata and Angel Musician scenes. The gamelan effects (not simply xylophones, but other similar instruments as well) are, to me personally, a fascinating element that connects the religious/devotional aspects of two musical cultures.

Is it a masterpiece? I think so. It's been such a short time that it's difficult to tell, and the work is very demanding on companies that want to produce it, which might be one factor that has prevented it from wider recognition. There is a DVD and also a CD recording available (a recording made at the first performances has dropped out of print), which is significant for any such contemporary work.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I fully understand that quite a few people will struggle to like "Saint François d'Assise". I have some criticism on the piece myself.


However, this is great music, by a very gifted composer. Messiaen was very conscious of his composition technique, wrote some books on the subject, and anyone interested can read them. If there is something the music of "Saint François" is not lacking, it's precisely structure. Now, it's perfectly possible that this structure can be overlooked, or even be found reiterative at some point. The repetitive element is present since the beginning of the opera, in the first section, with the dialogue between St. Francis and Brother Leon: 'J’ai peur, J’ai peur, J’ai peur sur la route...', but each iteration is somewhat different than the previous one. Like Ravi Shankar, in a totally unconnected occasion, said once: 'the music is the same, but it's played differently each time'. 


About the lack of drama... Well, conventional operatic drama was never the goal of Messiaen. He was not trying to compose another Romantic opera, in the 1980s. He was interested in presenting a soul on the verge of reaching sainthood, not the biography of the man Francis, with his ups and downs. The libretto follows this main purpose, and it's a good tool for that.


Sure, this could be considered an 'oratorio'. Why not?. Borders between 'oratorio' and 'opera' are somewhat vague, anyhow. Is "Parsifal" an opera, or a sacred festival for the stage?. In any case, "Saint François" can be staged (I have watched it staged, by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov), it was staged in the past, and it will be staged in the future.


Personally, in so many hours of music, I can surely find some passages more inspired than others. Some scenes like 'L'Ange musicien' are just pure magic. On the other hand, I do think 'Le Prêche aux oiseaux' is too long, and it would make sense to cut the scene.


And I agree "Saint François" is a 'succès d'estime'. I don't think it will ever be truly popular among operatic aficionados, at least in the foreseeable future.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I remember so vividly the first time I ever heard anything by Messiaen - the _Quartet for the End of Time_. His music has made the greatest impact on my life itself of any music I know of. But, I have to say that if I'd listened to his opera first, I might not have gotten so hooked. I keep listening to it, keep hoping... The strange thing is, I can, to some degree or other, agree with everything written in this thread so far.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I must say I struggle with anything Messiaen wrote. I find it awful. That's maybe my failing. But it is one thing my wife and I agree on, so I must be thankful for him in that respect!


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, my wife is a great fan of Messiaen, as I'm myself!. We even share our favorite piece from the French composer, _Des canyons aux étoiles_. That's normal, different persons, different tastes. 

Messian was very much in love with her first wife, Claire Delbos, and he dedicated this wonderful piece to her, _Poèmes pour Mi _:


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## MessiaenIsGod (Mar 25, 2010)

Well, given my user-name, it's no surprise that I'm a huge Messiaen fan. That being said, I myself have trouble with _Francois_, primarily because it's just so darn long. There are great moments here and there, and other passages that I don't think are as inspired. Maybe I just need to listen to more of it, it is a big time commitment, listening to this one!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I think you'll be frustrated by it if you expect the familiar. I hate to say Messiaen is above criticism but I sometimes feel that way about such great artists; I think he is so deliberate in much of his work that I can't pass off parts of St. Francois as unstructured or overindulgent, and besides I get so much joy out of listening to it I really find it hard to fault, it really does just make sense to my ears.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Huge Messiaen devotee myself and I for one love St. Francis. Sure it's long but can that even be a serious criticism? One could say the same with regards to many pieces by Wagner, Mahler and Stockhausen. Anyway, I am quite taken by powerful, muscular music and St. Francis is definitely that.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen's widow, when asked about if Saint François was too long, replied: "Long?. Oh, it's not long at all, you know. It's just so _generous_".

I guess this is a question of personal taste. In my own view, and having attended a performance live in the theater (well, indeed it was a sport center in the outskirts of Madrid, rathen than a theater), I do think 'Le Prêche aux oiseaux' could be cut and let's see what's the result.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Awful!? Shocking. I am not a big fan of Stravinsky but one should always exercise objectivity when passing judgement; Stravinsky was nothing short of a musical genius and I think that with enough listening I will learn to like his music one day.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

schigolch said:


> Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen's widow, when asked about if Saint François was too long, replied: "Long?. Oh, it's not long at all, you know. It's just so _generous_".
> 
> I guess this is a question of personal taste. In my own view, and having attended a performance live in the theater (well, indeed it was a sport center in the outskirts of Madrid, rathen than a theater), I do think 'Le Prêche aux oiseaux' could be cut and let's see what's the result.


Sorry, you want Messiaen, the ornithologist, to cut the preaching to the birds, the most famous episode in St. Francis' life, from his opera about St. Francis?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

If the opera is all you struggle with you are lucky. I struggle with the whole of Messiaen's output.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Not Messiaen, of course, that's sadly impossible.

What I think is to cut in a performance, because this incredible and very complex piece of music is not really, in my view, absolutely central to the opera, and increase what it's already a long proposition.

In fact, when the opera was offered in Madrid, many people in the audience left the premises after (well, some of them during) this scene. I think it could be interesting to see the effect of cutting the whole scene. Yes, it has some fantastic music inside, but again... Just an idea, anyway.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Stravinsky was nothing short of a musical genius and I think that with enough listening I will learn to like his music one day.


Oedipus Rex is a lovely start


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I can understand how Xavier feels about this singular work . Messiaen didn't seek to write
a conventional opera in the first place . Possibly seeing a staged performance would make it
more comprehensible , but unfortunately the length and difficulty of the work and the large
forces required ensure that it will never cone anywhere near to being performed as regularly
as the most familiar staples of the operatric repertoire . I believe there's a DVD avaialble.


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