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COPYRIGHT 2005 www.wmich.edu/compdr
One of the happiest and the most creative meetings of East and West came about in a work by the British composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76). During a short stay of twelve days in Japan, he saw two performances of the Japanese medieval Noh play Sumidagawa, and eight years later he completed his opera Curlew River, which was based upon this Noh play.
In November 1955, he and the tenor Peter Pears along with their patrons, Prince Ludwig of Hesse and Rhine and his wife Margaret, left England on a world concert tour. On 8 February 1955 they arrived in Tokyo, and three days later they attended a performance of Sumidagawa (Sumida River), Juro Motomasa's fifteenth-century drama, at the Suidobashi Noh Theater in Tokyo. The performance was being staged by the Umetani Group of the Kanze School with Takeshi Umewaka playing the leading role. The day was to be remembered as one of the most significant of the entire tour.
Before leaving for Japan, Britten had been advised in advance by William Plomer, who was to become the librettist of Curlew River, that he should make a point of seeing a Noh play. Plomer, having spent three years in Japan in his early twenties and being well versed in many aspects of Japanese culture, was certain that Britten would be inspired by a strange dramatic experience such as this even though the composer knew little about the genre and did not understand the language at all. It is useful to see how Plomer described his own experiences of the Noh theater in his autobiography:
And what was Noh play? To this the European brought that total ignorance which, in its way, made him specifically impressionable. One did not understand the archaic language, the completely strange chanting; one knew nothing of the symbolism, and the briefly outlined plot was so steeped in the mysteries of antiquity, of a remote and venerable culture, of esoteric Buddhism, that one had to rely on little but the evidence of one's senses to perceive the great beauty and refinement and agelessness of a wholly nonpopular tradition and convention, which, in present-day jargon, would perhaps be sneered at as "elitist"--whatever that may mean. Perhaps, for those who use such a term, the best is too good. (1)
As Plomer had hoped, Britten was deeply impressed by the performance of Sumidagawa and wanted to see it again. This occurred on 19 February just before he left Japan for Hong Kong. As soon as he came back to England, he told Plomer "in a quiet voice but with ... a distinctive firmness" that he wished to compose an English version of the Noh play that he had seen. (2)
The composer was haunted by the memory of this extraordinary theatrical experience for many years. He wrote:
The whole occasion made a tremendous impression upon me: the simple, touching story, the economy of style, the intense slowness of the action, the marvelous skill and control of the performers, the beautiful costumes, the mixture of chanting, speech, singing which, with the three instruments, made up the strange music--it all offered a totally new "operatic" experience. There was no conductor--the instrumentalists sat on the stage, as did the chorus, and the chief characters made their entrance down a long ramp. The lighting was strictly non-theatrical. The cast was all male, the one female character wearing an exquisite mask made no attempt to hide the male jowl beneath it. (3)
Integral to the plot of Sumidagawa is the Sumida River (the name is derived from Sumi, "corner," and da, "rice field"), from which this Noh play took its name, which runs through the Kanto Plain and enters the sea in Tokyo Bay. (4) On an evening one spring, the Ferryman of this river is about to row across. The Traveler approaches him and asks for a place in the boat. Shortly thereafter a distraught woman, a noble lady from Miyako (present-day Kyoto, in the western part of Japan, and in earlier times its capital) arrives. She is wearing a Fukai mask, a wig, and elegant garments and is carrying in her hand a branch of bamboo, which in this case signifies madness. (5) In her long journey of many months she has been searching for her only child, who was kidnapped by a slave trader. She recites a poem:
Mother: "Although a mother's mind May be unclouded, She well may lose her way Through love of her child." How true that is! Where does my darling stray? (149)
She herself has lost her sanity after losing her child:
Since when with mind distraught I wander on my desperate quest, Torn by longing for my boy. (150)
She asks the Ferryman to take her across the river, but, reluctant to have someone so deranged in his boat, he answers mockingly that he will only take her on one condition: "I will not take you aboard unless you amuse us with one of your crazy dances" (151). Chiding him for his cruelty, she reminds him that she is a lady of Miyako. The Ferryman sneers at her pride: "How like a woman of Miyako to use such elegant language!" (151). At the words of the Ferryman, she recalls an old poem recorded in the ninth-century Japanese classic, Ise Monogatari. In this place the famous poet, Narihira, remembering his lady in Miyako, recited this verse: "O, birds of Miyako, / If you are worthy of your name, / Tell me, does my love still live?" (151-52). The poem awakens her frenzied longing for her child, and she dances insanely. The Ferryman is moved: "So sensible a mad woman I never have seen. Be quick and come aboard" (153). She is at last allowed to enter the boat for the crossing.
Solemn chanting is heard from across the river. The Traveler asks the Ferryman what it means. He answers that precisely one year ago on this day a twelve-year-old boy who had been abducted by a slave trader became ill and had been abandoned by his kidnapper. The villagers, kind of heart, buried him on the bank of the river, and are now holding a prayer service for the soul of the dead boy. The madwoman comes to the realization that the child is indeed her son, Umewakamaru. This, then, will be the end of her long and arduous quest:
Mother: He was the child This mad woman is seeking. Is this a dream? O cruel fate! (155)
She sheds many...
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