Music: Raising the Devil

Russian Composer Sergei Prokofiev, manhandled by the Manhattan critics, was in a black mood. It was 1919 and he was wandering forlornly through Central Park. Looking up at the surrounding skyscrapers, he thought “of all the wonderful orchestras in America that cared nothing about my music.” He had come “too soon,” he decided. “The child (America) was not old enough to appreciate new music.” Out of “sheer despair” he plunged into a new opera, The Flaming Angel—a manic-depressive nightmare set to unmelodic music. Last week, like some dark specter returned to haunt the scene of the crime, the opera was given its U.S. premiere by the enterprising New York City Opera company. Consensus was that even if America is now old enough, it is still not ready to embrace Angel as opera.

As a theatrical vehicle, Prokofiev’s libretto is so outlandish as to be curiously fascinating and, at times, good fun. Based on a Gothic tale by the Russian symbolist writer Valery Bryusov, Angel is set in 16th century Germany and revolves, or rather, rolls around a fetching young damsel named Renata (Soprano Eileen Schauler). Unfortunately, she has an advanced case of the screaming meemies. In the first act she bares her problem in a long aria while writhing around the stage on her stomach.

It seems that a visionary Flaming Angel, who once favored her with visits until she invited him to bed down with her, has reincarnated himself in the body of a certain Count Heinrich. The count has been more receptive to her favors but now he, too, has angelically gone and deserted her. The following four acts are one long mad scene as Renata pursues the count through the back alleys of her subconscious. Along the way, there are magic potions, a séance, rattling skeletons, a furry sorcerer and assorted gnomes to contend with. Even Faustus and Mephistopheles, coming on like a netherworld Frick & Frack, get into the act. Mephistopheles produces a bouquet of flowers out of the air, and pops a little boy into the oven. Sighs Faustus: “Don’t you ever get weary of the same old tricks?” Renata does. Having flogged herself with a whip, she enters a nunnery to repent by singing again on her stomach. The saga ends with the nuns staging an orgy with imaginary demons and Renata condemned to burn at the stake for raising the devil.

Prokofiev’s score, ably conducted by Julius Rudel, is appropriately dissonant and heavily percussive. Soprano Schauler, whose surmounting of Prokofiev’s vocal obstacle course was achievement enough, proved a splendid actress as well. But then, as one who admits to powers of ESP, she was a natural for the role. As for seeing flaming angels, she says she took lessons from her five-year-old son, Jeffrey, who had an invisible playmate named Timothy.