Fidelio

Concluding the first chapter to the book, the thought that has been resounding in the annals of my mind is: How does one intelligently discuss a book that resists all readings, and yet is open to all? Anything that I say technically can be refuted; for even I could unthread any argument I create. As difficult and as problematic as this sounds, I really have found the first chapter quite liberating. Reading about 5-10 pages a day at most, re-reading them usually as well, has been a pleasant experience; even reading them aloud - with an imitation Irish brogue - has proven amusing.

But the question remains: What can I say?

Well why not turn to an artform that also uses gesture and gesticulation rather than words and action? Opera.

I wish I could talk about Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde as if you look at 3:4 (page:line), the first 'true' sentence states: 'Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war' (3:4-6). A humorous and playful way of saying that Tristam has sailed across the English Channel/Celtic Sea to Ireland to get to Iseult and to play out his love affair (violer/violent d'amores/of love). I'm sure Sir Thomas Malory here is alluded to: the apostophes in 'd'amores', suggesting perhaps the lack of apostrophe in Malory's magnum opus Le Morte darthur; and in 'fr'over', suggesting an early modern English/late Middle English conjunction that you definitely come across in Shakespeare and Malory. Tennyson, in his reworking of the Arthurian myth probably has something to say, but as most of you know I'm not a 19th century guy, so if anyone can enlighten us here about Tristan in Tennyson, that would be fantastic.

Joyce rather enjoyed Wagner, perhaps not as much as he enjoyed Henrik Ibsen (could the Norwegian playwright be one of the reasons why the letters HCE reappear - Henrik Ibsen...c'mon, with wordplay/soundplay this might be up Joyce's alley). So I'm sure that Tristan was deep in his mind - especially since it is one of the 'turning points' of opera, and of music in general.

But since I can't talk in detail about Wagner's opera, I shall discuss something I'm much more familiar with:

Ludwig van Beethoven's sole opera: Fidelio.

Still in the 'Introduction' of the first chapter of FW, the narrator goes through a wide variety of wordplays and amusing musings. The sentence that sticks out in my mind is 6:25-26: 'With their deepbrow fundigs and the dusty fidelios.' It's a boring sentence compared to what is going on elsewhere, although it does contain 'deepbrow fundings' or De Profundis - the writing that Oscar Wilde produces whilst in his gaol - but 'fidelio' is in there. A tenuous connection to Beethoven, perhaps. But keep with me.

Fidelio in short is about a woman (Leonora) who dresses up as a man (then known as Fidelio) so that she can work in a prison in order to remain close to her husband, Florestan (if you reverse this name and make it 'tan flores', you have a translation from the Spanish of 'so many flowers' - an early symbol for womanhood, and of Leopold Bloom). Already there is the connection of disguised and confused identities - in the Wake it's pretty simple to see all the derivations of the HCE and ALP, and a combination when there're together: 'Hic cubat edilis. Apud libertinam parvulam' (7:22-23). Translated from the Latin, this means: 'Here lies the (edible) man/magistrate. By the tiny freewoman.' Already there's some sort of parallel. The swapping of 'tradtional' gender roles, in both FW and Fidelio.

My personal favourite aria - and probably most people's - is 'O welche Lust, in freier Luft'. It occurs towards the end of Act I. And it's the only time a chorus of voices is heard onstage.

For some reason I can't place the clip from YouTube on to the site, so please settle for the link.

The prisoners are set free, if only for a tiny moment in their lives. And are stunned - cannot move due to the liberating (libertinam...a word used to describe ALP; Fidelio, a woman, is the one that liberates the prisoners) sense of euphoria that has taken hold of them. You don't even have to know what they're saying in order to know what they're feeling. Which is why opera is more about gesture, in lyric and more importantly in music. But here are the lyrics translated to English:

PRISONERS' CHORUS
Oh what joy, in the open air
Freely to breathe again!
Up here alone is life!
The dungeon is a grave.

FIRST PRISONER
We shall with all our faith
Trust in the help of God!
Hope whispers softly in my ears!
We shall be free, we shall find peace.

ALL THE OTHERS
Oh Heaven! Salvation! Happiness!
Oh Freedom! Will you be given us?

SECOND PRISONER
Speak softly! Be on your guard!
We are watched with eye and ear.

ALL
Speak softly! Be on your guard!
We are watched with eye and ear.
Oh what joy, in the open air
Freely to breathe again!
Up here alone is life.
Speak softly! Be on your guard!
We are watched with eye and ear.


I personally think it's hysterical that the prisoners silence themselves in the middle of their beautiful aria, as they could be caught. But that doesn't stop them. They still sing out.

(Also, I'd like to bring to your attention that Malory wrote whilst imprisoned. And Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut uses 'Fidelio' as the password to the house where Dr Harford 'grows up' through a bizarre sexual odyssey.)

One of the words emphasized with quite a bit of zealousness sounds like a word that could have been shouted above all during the Ninth Symphony: 'Freiheit' or 'Freedom'. A term that Beethoven, being a true philosopher and child of the Romantic and Enlightenment movements, took to heart. Freedom to the prisoners in Fidelio means life. And yet with freedom they can't really do anything.

Which then brings us back by recirculation to Finnegans Wake. We have the freedom, we are liberated, free from any one reading, any forced reading. And yet, we perhaps have to stand like a deer in the headlights when reading this text. We've been bogged down by structuralism and literary tropes that it's hard to know what to do when those almost have disappeared.

Fidelio is a beautiful opera, and if you don't think the Germanic languages can be beautiful, I suggest listening to it.

And Finnegans Wake is 'shaping' into a beautiful book. Does anyone agree that so far it's kind of reminiscent of chapter 11 aka 'Sirens' of Ulysses. Because chapter 1 definitely felt like an Overture of sorts too. And of course this is probably the most musical-infused novel one could probably read. It's like 600 pages of high poetry.