The Lives and Deaths of Composers

A question no doubt on the minds of lovers of music is: why are there so few operas based on the lives of composers? The answer is, because composers’ lives are so boring. Writing music, the act of applying pen or pencil to paper (or, more recently, inputting at a keyboard), hour after hour, day in and day out, is not material for high drama. Proofreading orchestral parts gives little in the way of visual excitement.

The most interesting aspect of most composers’ lives is how they die. Legends spring up about this. Some are true, such as Chausson riding his bicycle down an incline; the braking mechanism (newly invented) fails him, he smashes into a wall, and expires. Some are suspect, such as Alkan reaching for the Torah on a high bookshelf. It falls hitting him on the head killing him. If a composer is thought to die at the hand of another composer, this has operatic potential. Pushkin’s tale Mozart and Salieri was taken up by Rimsky-Korsakov who composed his opera of the same title in 1897. Much later, Peter Shaffer developed a similar theme in his 1979 play Amadeus later made into a successful film. Of course, Salieri did not really poison Mozart--although he no doubt wanted to.

Composers who exhibit criminal tendancies would seem to offer fruitful possibilities. There was Johann Rosenmüller, the 17th century composer, trombonist, and organist. He was arrested in the spring of 1655 for sexual misconduct. He escaped from jail and managed to resume his career—there being a shortage of accomplished trombonists in Venice at the time. Alas, he was too obscure a composer for this to be of general interest.

The composer of Der Freischütz, Carl Maria von Weber, was arrested, along with his father, on February 9, 1810. He was charged with embezzlement, participation in a draft-evasion scheme, and theft of royal silverware—the last charge, and only the last charge, was found to be unfounded. After a short confinement Weber (and his father) were banished from the Stuttgart region. So far, this material has not inspired an opera.

Hector Berlioz very nearly commited murder—not just once, but serially. After his initial infatuation with Harriet Smithson, he fell in love with a certain Camille Moke. Hector and Camille became engaged. Berlioz went alone to Rome, having finally won the Prix de Rome (on the fourth or fifth try). There was a suspicious lack of news from his fiancée. Presently, her mother informed him by post that she was now going to marry the prosperous piano maker Camille Pleyel. She was dumping Berlioz. Armed with two pistols and a chambermaid’s disguise, Berlioz left for Paris intending to kill Camille, her mother, the other Camille Pleyel, and then himself. Pausing in the city of Nice, he composed his overture to King Lear, cooled off, and returned to Rome, all murderous plans abandoned.

The one composer who did indeed commit multiple murders was Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa, who lived from about 1561 until 1613. On October 16, 1590, he dispatched his wife Maria and her lover, the Duke of Andria. He had discovered them in a compromising situation. Because of his aristocratic station, add to which Italian sympathy for the wronged husband, no particular penalty (other than a certain notariety) came to Gesualdo—who proceeded to find another wife, Leonora d’Este, whom he married in a festive ceremony. (Did she know his history?) That marriage was equally unhappy, but less violent. But from the standpoint of operatic treatment, crime does seem to pay. Four operas that I know of have been written about Gesualdo: Alfred Schnittke’s in 1994; Franz Hummel’s in 1996; Bo Holten’s of 2003; and Luca Francesconi’s of 2004. As far as I can tell, New York has yet to experience any of these.