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                         Iolanthe (2)

     I reread the libretto of Iolanthe last night.  Act One I
thought I had reasonably assimilated.  But in reading the
second act, I was disconcerted by the slapstick of the Lord
Chancellor's insomnia aria, and even more so by the burlesque
of the ensuing Ararat-Tolloller-Lord Chancellor trio, for
which the director of this production places the actors side
by side on a queen-size bed, singing lustily and tossing
their right legs into the air, as if it was the legs that
dictated the music's rhythm.  I was also disconcerted by the
seemingly capricious transformation of the Peers into
fairies, Peers satirized as Pirates of Penzance seemed rather
more appropriate, and disconcerted also by the flightiness
(literally and figuratively) of the entire company's ascent,
auf Fluegeln des Gesanges, (on wings of song) into heaven.

     It's amazing what difference a night's sleep can make.
This morning, it all looks different.  I am struck by the
role of interpretation in defining the meaning of the operetta.
The playwright is responsible for the text, the composer for
the melody, the ensemble of artists for the performance, and
the audience, such as myself, is ultimately responsible for
discerning the meaning. The playwright's and the composer's
interpretations of their work, where such interpretations are
made explicit, deserve great respect, but are not ultimately
conclusive. The audience's understanding, interpretation and
sympathy are essential and indispensable to the production.
cf. Prospero's epilogue. As for my own interpretations, I am
aware of their extravagance.  I consider them experimental and
am prepared to discard them if not tomorrow then the day after.

     It seems that there are in fact two queens in the play,
the nominal fairy queen who is Victoria's Doppelgaengerin
(Victoria's double); and Iolanthe who, by virtue of her
sacrifices, reveals herself to be the true queen, in contrast
with the other's self-indulgent sensuous selfishness.
Arguably, this play is in fact a drama about a royal
succession.  In the end, the fairy queen abdicates in favor
of Iolanthe and marries Private Willis. Iolanthe, most
poignantly is _not_ reunited with the Lord Chancellor.

     The play opens with a call from the depths, not an
audible call, to be sure, but one as powerful, if not more
so, a call to memory, a call to affection, to sympathy.  The
prototypical call from the depths is in the Psalms:

1  Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
2  Lord, hear my voice:
let thine ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications.
3  If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand?
4  But there is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayest be feared.
5  I wait for the LORD,
my soul doth wait,
and in his word do I hope.
6  My soul waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning:
I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
7  Let Israel hope in the LORD:
for with the LORD there is mercy,
and with him is plenteous redemption.
8  And he shall redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
               Psalm 130

I am aware that this reference will seem inappropriate.
Perhaps it is, but perhaps it isn't.  The circumstance that I
find it persuasive is significant.  The manner of association
is revealing I think, about the mechanism (manner) in which
the mind works.  When I contemplate Iolanthe in the depths
I hear melodies of a cantata: Aus der Tiefe, rufe ich Herr zu
Dir. (BWV 131)  So the queen did hear Iolanthe's voice calling
from the depths, inspite of the fact that she is obviously
somewhat of a nit-wit. So was Queen Victoria; and in this
context it is my intial, very tentative surmise that maybe
Victoria donned widow's weeds to conceal the vacuousness of
her emotional existence, to prove her seriousness: to perceive
herself and to be perceived as a serious monarch.

     As for Iolanthe, in marrying a human, Iolanthe spurned
(betrayed) her fairy status and made herself mortal.  We are
not told whether she "married" the Lord Chancellor willingly
or unwillingly, whether this marriage was forced on her or
not.  We do know that she resorted to the depths of the well
in order to be with Strephon, and that she was prepared to die
for Strephon's happiness. Her sacrifice redounded not only to
Strephon, but as sacrifices do, to the world, specifically to
the Peers; she assimilated them to herself and transformed
them into fairies (unmortal, immortal beings), who then
ascended and were taken up into heaven. The last time a
divine-mortal ascended into heaven, he left his followers
behind, confused, and to this day awaiting his second coming. 
Gilbert's scenario is more generous.  He invites everyone to
come along, and they accept.

     In a culture that ostensibly valued marriage above
everything else, it seems noteworthy that the mere statement
"I am thy wife", should be a capital offense. Was the mention
of marriage proscribed, because here as in Pirates, it was a
euphemism for a relationship deemed immoral, or was the
mention of marriage proscribed because among fairies marriage
was deemed betrayal of the sisterly bond?  It is naive to
assume that the officious fairy queen did not "know" or was
unaware when she condemned Iolanthe to death the second time,
that all her other subjects had in fact "married", and that
therefore consistent enforcement of the law would require that
she put all of them to death.  Arguably, her prosecution of
Iolanthe was in fact not the fair and equitable enforcement
of law: it was persecution of a competitor for her throne, a
pattern of royal behavior etched deep into British history.
When the clandestinely "married" fairies come to Iolanthe's
aid and protest Iolanthe's second death sentence, they do so
not (so much) because they love her, as because they fear for
themselves. And this concern for their own security
precipitates a revolution, albeit a benign, gentle revolution,
a revolution in fairy land. The Lord Chancellor's emendation
of the law to conform to practice is a remarkable parody of
practical, humane British statemanship and a masterful
summary of the spirit and indeed of the practice of the
common law.

     I find fascinating also the relationships of Mountararat
and Tolloller to each other, to the Lord Chancellor, and to
Phyllis.  Tolloller and Ararats affection for Phyllis is
limited by their affection for each other.  The trio about
winning fair lady is paradoxical.  It is the memorable
musical expression of the harmony of the singers' voices,
hence of their souls, but the display of harmony among the
singers denigrates the erotic passion which it celebrates. 
That the affections of the three men for each other are
stronger than the affection of any of them for Phyllis is
obvious, and does not require psychoanalytic interpretation,
nor is it surprising that Phyllis, in the end, prefers
Strephon to any of the three men whose fondness for each
other exceeds their fondness for her, notwithstanding
the circumstance that as a member of parliament Strephon
seems to have lost much of his charm.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
