Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is
inspired by a character in Charles Dickens'
novel of rape expectations.
Aurelia Havisham, a complex and unusually
conflicting personage in literature,
Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is an outgrowth
of Argento's operatic work, Miss Havisham's
Fire, written in 1979.
Inspired by Beverly Seale's enthusiasm for the
character, the work was intended for her last
operatic performance,
and Julius Riddell's final appearance as
director of New York City Opera.
Initially, Seale's tentative suggestion for
libretto was Empress Carlotta of Mexico.
Argento located a copy of the literary work,
Imperial Madness, and thought the subject had possibility.
The work reminded Argento of his previous
successful collaboration with Miss Seale.
He enlisted the aid of Charles Nolte as
librettist and entitled the work The Phantom Empress.
According to Argento's memoir,
That fall I invited Seale to lunch, during a
visit she paid to Minneapolis.
The libretto was not finished, nor was any
music yet written.
So she asked if I had any alternative ideas to
the Carlotta opera.
I told her about John Owen Scrimter's libretto,
Miss Havisham's Wedding Night,
but explained that it was only a short month
drama and hardly the right vehicle for her
departure from the stage.
Seale responded enthusiastically to the idea of
an opera based on the character of Miss Havisham.
A poet d'amour, she called her, not unlike many
of the operatic heroines she had portrayed
during her career.
She wondered whether a full-length opera could
be written about Miss Havisham.
I told her I thought it could, and she
immediately said, let's do that instead.
As a result, Argento dropped the Carlotta
musical idea.
The Carlotta idea was a great disappointment
for him.
He had already started to envision several scenes.
Nevertheless, he discovered more possibilities
of the character of Aurelia Havisham.
Even though Argento was convinced that Miss
Havisham's Fire displayed some of his finest music,
it was not well received by audiences or critics.
Maestro Julius Riddell conducted the premiere
of Miss Havisham's Fire,
and believed cunning from the last scene would
have helped.
The offer was riding high up until that point,
and was appreciated by the audience,
but it was eventually lost, Riddell said during
a recent interview.
At the Orchestra dress rehearsal, I pleaded
with Argento and Scrimgeour to make the cuts in
the final scene.
Argento was willing to do so, but Scrimgeour
would not.
I could feel the audience slipping away in the performance.
If only we could have shortened and tightened
things to keep the intensity.
Argento expresses in his memoir that Miss
Havisham's Fire was the biggest failure of her career,
and no other failure, before or since, has hurt
nearly as much.
In spite of the negative response to Miss
Havisham's Fire,
Argento remained committed to his decision of
avoid the Carlotta idea.
I took Sills to heart when she said that she
wanted to feel like a wrung-out rat.
It is important to note that Miss Havisham's
Fire was originally written for Beverly Sills.
However, due to health issues, Miss Sills had
to decline.
If she would have performed it, it would have
been well-designed for her voice.
Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is a tour de force,
a tremendous dramatic and vocal complexity for
the singer.
This piece is an extended mat scene for soprano
extracted from Act II of Argento's Miss
Havisham's Fire.
Miss Havisham's Wedding Night proved more
effective in the theater,
and provided Argento some consolation for the
failure of Miss Havisham's Fire.
The premiere of Argento's Miss Havisham's
Wedding Night took place on May 1, 1981,
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Soprano Rita
Shane and conductor Phillip Riddell of the
Minnesota Opera.
John Ole Scrimgeour's libretto for Argento's
monodrama, Miss Havisham's Wedding Night,
is taken from varying portions of Charles
Dickens' literary work Great Expectations.
Scrimgeour organized the libretto for the
monodrama in a fashion similar to the actions
of Miss Havisham displayed in Great Expectations.
Although an important figure in Dickens' work,
Miss Havisham is not the main character around
which the novel is centered.
The novel's main character is the young hip,
one who befriends Miss Havisham and her adopted
daughter Estella.
As a result, Scrimgeour ultimately drew from
two distinct parts of the book for his libretto.
A character description of Miss Havisham is
presented in Volume 1, Chapter 8,
and her betrayal and tragedy, which appears in
Volume 2, Chapter 3.
In both the novel and the monodrama, years have
passed since Miss Aurelia Havisham's jilted
wedding day.
Although she has resolved to live in seclusion,
nevertheless, she adopted a young girl named Estella
in an effort to teach her how to betray,
manipulate, and deceive men without any remorse.
Scrimgeour condensed the action associated with
Dickens' book in an effort to focus solely on
the tragedy and demise of Aurelia Havisham,
just as Dickens opted to provide a character
description of Miss Havisham and great expectations
so does Scrimgeour in our gentlest Miss
Havisham's wedding night.
In both works, when the obstinate and imperious
Aurelia Havisham is introduced,
she is portrayed as a picture of emotional instability.
We later learn in both works, this instability
is due to her having been jilted on her wedding day.
The Dickens' work focused on the demise of Miss
Havisham in two sections of the book.
However, Scrimgeour's libretto is divided into
three sections dramatically and emotionally.
Each section represents various chapters of her
life which have occurred since she was jilted
on her wedding day.
According to our gentlest, the form of Miss
Havisham's wedding night is basically rhapsodic,
and it doesn't inform the work, it is the work.
It is fitting that the form of Miss Havisham's
wedding night is classified as rhapsodic
because of the element of madness.
Argento stated, I've almost given up setting
poetry, just prose allows me more freedom musically
to make longer lines, to make them go in
interesting directions.
Poetry in a sense dictates the highs and lows,
the duration, the rhythm.
I find it liberating to work with prose.
Although cyclic, the piece is free-flowing in structure,
and features a range of highly contrasted
moods, colors, and tonality.
Similar in form to Donizetti's Lucia Del Amor,
Argento's Miss Havisham's wedding night is rhapsodic.
The combination of a rhapsodic form with cyclic
elements allows a return of various melodic and
orchestral motives,
and creates an arc shaped dramatically and emotionally.
Miss Havisham's wedding night represents a
number of fantasies that the manic character
has created nightly
since the day she was jilted.
Scrimgeour's Loretto displays each emotion that
resulted from Miss Havisham's fantasies and
true experiences.
As such, he supplies Argento with numerous
opportunities to express her madness in musical terms.
Although Argento avoids setting the text in a
strophic manner, repeating musical motives do
occur in the Orchestra and vocal line,
thus providing the listener with a sense of
dramatic and musical continuity in this
through-composed work.
Argento's flexible style and setting in
Havisham's wedding night blends passages of
lyrical melodies
and sections of reciprocating that follow as
closely as possible the rhythm of ordinary speech.
Argento's primary focuses are the setting of a
text, the weight of words and syllables, and
the use of subtext.
He also implements recurrent, Motivic, and
thematic devices as a means of framing each section.
Recurrent motivic devices are prevalent
throughout the piece.
They alternately serve to establish the form of
the work, to strengthen the dramatic
integration, and to unify the piece musically.
We are introduced to Aurelia through a thematic
lament in which she refers to herself as the
queen who man's diversion.
The queen demands diversion.
Elements of the queen demands diversion motive
are displayed in the orchestral writing of the arioso.
The motive appears in both the treble and bass
moving simultaneously in opposite directions.
The shifting tonality, dynamics, meter, and
articulation are indicative of Aurelia
Havisham's imbalanced manic behavior.
This is the first example of palitone texture.
The queen demands diversion motive returns a
final time at rehearsal number 38, introducing
a new cadenza section.
Elements including rhythmic and melodic
structure associated with the section at
rehearsal number 6 return at measure 360.
This time is accompanied by an E-flat, pebble
point at measures 360-361.
The door opens slowly, slowly.
The queen demands diversion.
Orchestral material remains constant throughout
the work.
If its role is an accompaniment or an
orchestral interlude, the compositional devices
used at rehearsal number 4 are again found at
rehearsal number 6.
In contrast to the previous section, the
tonality of E-flat major coupled with G-flat
major create a polytonality and contrary motion.
Other important motives which serve to organize
the work and integrate the dramatic and musical
content of the opera are,
I have done with all mankind, it is Miss
Havisham's wedding day, and I am the mad Miss Havisham.
Each has a specific role to help establish
continuity and points of reference in the drama.
When we first encounter Aurelia Havisham, her
initial phrase is, I have done with all mankind
and want diversion.
I have done with all mankind and want diversion.
Aurelia Havisham's Latin is simple, yet as it
is presented in an exposed fashion over a pedal
cord, it is also very powerful.
Also worthy of note is how her gentle stress is
the first syllable of the word in an effort to
inform the musical brain and emotional thought.
At this point in the opera, the imperious
Aurelia Havisham is introduced.
However, when the theme returns later in the
work, the intervallic and rhythmic structure
are the same, but to the text-givers,
I have done with all mankind, I am tired.
She has received and read the letter, and has
released an abundance of rage and hysteria.
She has chosen to summon that encompassing in
her own mind.
The use of the Alakadensa frames and prepares
the audience for yet another emotional side of
Aurelia Havisham.
The Alakadensa serves as a moment of
introspective thought.
Finally, Aurelia Havisham's resolve is, I have
done with all mankind, I have done.
It is almost as if she has resolved to accept
life's fate and dismiss the ongoing nightly
fantasies re-enacted over the years.
It is Miss Havisham's wedding day, is Aurelia's
grand and fair white wedding day announcement.
Each time it is referenced, the rhythmic
structure is the same with some amendments, but
the emotion that follows is different.
For example, at Rehearsal Number 13, the theme
foreshadows Aurelia's transition to a turbulent
emotional tantrum
with an E major tonal center where she gains
control again and describes individuals in a
violent, obstinate, haughty manner.
But, at Measure 105, it is musically conveyed
by an accompanying descending eighth note pattern
with sostenuto articulation suggesting an
emotional change to a more exultant state.
It is Miss Havisham's wedding day.
Your next behavior is expected.
When the thematic material returns at Rehearsal
Number 15, D-flat major is the tonality,
leading to D-flat major to introduce her grand announcement.
Miss Havisham's wedding day will be remembered
for generations.
Our gentle stresses the importance of it is
missed at Rehearsal Number 15 by rhythmically
notating an unaccompanied,
identical triplet pattern with sostenuto
articulation for each word.
Another recurring motive is, I am the mad Miss Havisham.
Rhythmically, it is reminiscent of the, it is
Miss Havisham's wedding day face, but it is
intervallically different.
It appears twice in the opera, and on each
occasion, the rhythmic and vocal writing is identical.
The first occurrence of the laments is
immediately after she has received and read the
letter at Rehearsal Number 39,
which results in an enormous eruption of emotion.
I am the mad Miss Havisham, who lives in the
darkness, with a carol in front of her.
The final example occurs at Rehearsal Number 48.
After she regains her composure and speaks to
Matthew, only to erupt into another violent outburst.
What is noticeable is how this lament, in
particular, has a calming effect on Aurelia.
Each time in a song, she becomes more
vulnerable and reflective.
Aurelia Havisham is a broken woman, mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually.
Yet, she displays moments of lucidity. The
melodic and harmonic structures of this work
reflect the dramatic content at its core.
As Mary Ann Smart had best expressed, there
seems to be an intuitive connection between
madness and coloratura.
Trills, melismas, and high notes suggest
hysteria, an unbearable pitch of emotion.
They liberate music from the text, allow it to
escape from the rational, connected with
pre-symbolic modes of communication.
In a sense, coloratura signifies the emergence
of irrationality and madness.
As such, when Aurelia experiences emotional
conflict, the dynamic change and disjunctive
rhythmic patterns emerge.
There is also a wide variety of articulatory
figures and fioritura, as well as more
chromaticism and dissonance.
An example of Argento's use of agitated
articulation, fragmentation of phrases, and
chromatic vocal writing can be heard in measure 421-429,
after Aurelia realizes the turmoil and
humiliation inflicted upon her.
Because of the various levels of instability of
Miss Havisham,
Our gentle stretches her emotional and vocal capacity
through wide, intervallic leaps.
When a really is overwhelmed with emotion,
the extremes of the voice are exploited.
In most cases, they are actually more lyrical
and robust,
with denser orchestral texture.
Such is the case in measures 212-213.
He loves me, Nanny.
He loves me.
He loves me, dear.
He loves me.
The delivery of natural speech-like patches
and inflections, coupled with lyrical and
melodious phrases,
occur frequently in our gentle style of vocal writing.
Our gentle uses this style of writing
not only as a means of enhancing the dramatic content,
but also as a way of unifying the text as a whole.
He achieves this by using perfect forms,
falling fourths,
and minor sevenths, especially in the
recitative sections.
As a result, the melody reflects the shape and inflections
of natural speech patterns.
He employs quintuplets and quadruplets
rhythmically to emphasize the natural stress of
the words.
Thus, the recitative displays a more natural shape
and conversational effect.
For example, Argento groups two groups of quintuplets
on the phrase, as good a way to begin a thing.
Come in, come in, as good a way to begin a thing.
Argento employs text painting to depict
Aurelio Haber's systematic instability.
During the aria, also in the second section
of the monodrama, Argento displays
a linguistic technique of onomatopoeia
in an effort to depict and enhance Aurelio's madness.
As she begins to imitate the sounds of nature,
she references the presence of the wind, a
bird, a brook,
and girlish laughter.
For example, he uses whoosh to describe
the action of the wind and a single orchestral line
displayed by the heart, echoes, and supports
the vocal line as the word, whoosh, is sung.
Somebody whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, Whoosh.
Time is a recurring dramatic theme
of establishment's wedding night.
Argento creates a plaintive and eerie atmosphere
through the use of the harmonium and chimes.
The piece begins with the chimes representing
the striking of the clock.
Subsequent occurrences of the clock theme of
the chimes
represent anger in some instances
while expressing despair in others.
Initially, there is no clear tonal center.
This is significant in that it suggests
her mental instability.
["Circle of Life"]
This same series of clock-loaded returns later.
["Circle of Life"]
Scoring for a small chamber orchestra,
the orchestral accompaniment for this monodrama
is vital to the successful portrayal
of its complexity character.
To Argento, the orchestra is part of the
atmospheric color,
but using piano is unchanging.
It does a transport color.
It's like a painting to take a Picasso
and make it black and white.
The Orchestra maintains a supportive role
throughout the opera.
Just as the vocal line exhibits musical motives
and themes,
those same elements are heard in the Orchestra.
In most cases, especially as the emotions intensify,
the Orchestra foreshadows the actions,
whether it is through orchestral interludes,
pedal points, or elements associated
with the wedding ceremony.
In a sense, the Orchestra functions
as a distinct character,
which comments, questions, and engages in dialogue
with Aurelia Habesheim.
The harmonium provides an effective representation
of the cabochon's wedding theme,
evocative of the organ in a church wedding.
It also portrays a mood of eeriness
in much the same way that the organ is used in
horror themes.
The orchestral interludes
in Metabolishans' Wedding Night
are essential to the integration
of the drama and musical thought.
Just as the motivic structure frames individual sections
and episodic outbursts,
so do the orchestral interludes.
The orchestral interludes are active participants
that foreshadow and enhance the drama.
For example, at rehearsal number 31,
the repetition of the F-sharps and measures,
296-298, establish the moment
in which Aurelia begins to read the letter.
At this point in the work, an aura of suspense
and urgency is exhibited through the use
of strongly accented eight, 16,
and triplet note patterns in all voices.
Argento creates the effect of emotional imbalance
at measures 298-303
by notating disjunctive descending tremolo patterns
by the strings, resolving to a cluster chord,
signifying the dropping of the letter.
Argento continues the same musical pattern
at rehearsal number 33,
as Aurelia's mind continues to race
as she relives the reading of the letter,
although the repeated section at rehearsal
number 33
is similar in structure.
F-natural is employed and the appearance
of the string is lower and more pronounced.
The picturesque and atmospheric or casual writing
of the tabernacle's wedding night
serve the imagery of its huts.
At rehearsal number eight, Argento creates
the lexical effect of silent galaxies
through the use of the instrumentation,
which consists of harp, oboe, violin, and flute.
The use of triplets against duplets
evokes the movement of the star and the galaxy.
Argento combines descriptive imagery
with aspects of time, heartbreak, manipulation,
urgency, and delusion to bring to life
the daily experiences and object interactions
of the character in a way that involves
sympathy if not sympathy.
His emphasis seems to be on her ability to stop time
as we hear the striking of the clock
with the poker during the repeated
B-flat cluster of chords,
coupled with Staccato eighth notes, quintuplet,
and quadruplet rhythms located in the bass
to represent Aurelia Harrison's heightened urgency.
Argento demonstrates his profound knowledge
of the human voice in establishment's wedding night.
His attention to detail in the vocal writing
suggests one who is sensitive to and knowledgeable
about the needs and desires of the singer.
His intrigue with the human voice
should come as no surprise considering his response
when asked the question,
you seem to like to write from the extremity
of the soprano voice, why?
And who are your influences?
Argento readily admits that his influences
is late wife, Carolyn Bailey,
who was a coloratura soprano.
An ideal complement to the orchestration,
the lyrics from Ms. Harrison's wedding night
are equally infused with a natural heaviness
of passion and expectation.
Aurelia Harrison displays most,
if not all the characteristics of mad women
in how they are portrayed in music.
Important compositional features
in Argento's musical setting
of establishment's wedding night include
rhythmic and melodic motives used to unify movements,
and illustrative orchestral accompaniment
used to portray visual images and belligerent
manic outbursts,
harmonic shifts, and bearings of tempos
to define sections and to depict the emotional erratic
and imbalanced psychological states of Aurelia Harrison.
The principal feature in Ms. Harrison's wedding night
is Argento's treatment of the vocal writer.
Ms. Harrison's frequently exploited
high and difficult tessitura, contrast in vocal timbre,
dynamics, articulation, mood, and passages
of both lyrical and dramatic singer
are demanding for the most accomplished singer.
Clear and precise defamation of the dramatic expression
attacks on the major considerations for the performer.
Legato singing sound in Ms. Harrison's wedding night
is easier to produce in the lyrical passages.
However, the dramatic, declamatory singing
often with disjunctive vocal phrases
also requires a legato approach.
The delivery of Argento's settings of Dickens' text
with the speech-line character races
can be difficult to articulate
as many of the words are delivered rapidly
and often contain clusters of consonants.
Because of this and other intricacies,
Rita Shane has expressed that she does not think
the young singer can sing Ms. Harrison's
wedding night.
The tessitura is difficult.
It takes a real strong artist,
one whose technique is solid.
The singer must be technically sound
because of the enormous dramatic content
of Ms. Harrison's wedding night.
Also, vocal, emotional, and physical stamina
play a tremendous role.
Considering the variance of emotional shifts,
the singer must be well-prepared musically
since it is easy to allow the energy of the drama
to compromise the integrity of the vocal technique.
According to Erie Mills,
because Ms. Harrison's wedding night
is intensely demanding both vocally and emotionally,
performance practice issues,
such as vocal timbre changes,
stamina, dynamics, and text must be addressed.
Although Ms. Harrison's wedding night
is set at the monodrama,
it still requires proper staging,
costuming, props, and lighting similar to a
large work,
all of which inform her performance.
Now, while Aurelia Habeshem is a complex woman,
the staging does not require any labyrinth effort.
Argento himself suggests that the work be
simply staged.
However, the visual image of Aurelia Habeshem
is important,
and awareness of the exterior of the man
is an added necessity,
given in an effort to bring the character to life
with credibility.
For years, Aurelia has relived the devastating moment
of being jilted on her wedding day.
Because she has always been a woman in control,
who has a grand and imperious persona,
Argento allows the music to be reflective
of the text and character.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the performer
to embrace Aurelia Habeshem in every capacity,
while working to become one with the tragedy,
drama, and music.
Thank you. Ślę
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