Kantan and Damask Drum

Kantan and Damask Drum Op. 67
followed by a folkplay (Kyogen) (Un)fair Exchange

A Japanese opera based on two Noh plays by Zeami with words by the composer based on various translations from the Japanese and the modern adaptation by Yukio Mishima.


No direct attempt is made to recreate the style of the traditional Noh theatre of Japan: this is a modern music theatre composition for singers, a dancer and an instrumental ensemble of, done in the belief that the dramas, originating from far away and long ago, may be understood by modern audiences.

In Kantan, a young man drifting about and seeking a meaning to life takes shelter from the storm in a cottage where he finds a magic pillow. Falling asleep he dreams that he is transported as an emperor to a magnificent palace. But as the dream turns to a nightmare, days and nights and the seasons of the year seem to go faster and faster until in fear he rushes back to his bed to wake. He has learned the futility of ambition; that life is here and now. He returns to his home.

In the Damask Drum, an old gardener who has fallen in love with a beautiful lady is mocked by two boys who encourage him to believe that if he beats a drum at night, she will come to him. But the drum makes no sound. Futilely, he beats and in despair throws himself into the water. The boys’ prank results in a tragedy. When told of it, the Lady herself is deeply affected by what has been done in her name. The situation reverses: the gardener turned into an angry demon reappears to taunt the Lady whom he (falsely) believes has spurned him. Now we, but not she, can hear the drum. “Beat it just once more. I’m sure to hear it”, she cries.

In the Kyogen, an old blind man is persuaded by his young wife to go on an outing, to drink and dance and see the blossom in spring. They are bothered by a monkey-man, who can think of better things for the young wife! He attaches his monkey to the old man’s sash and runs off with her. Fair exchange?

One is always tempted to ask when confronted with a text drawn from a far away culture, why the composer should have chosen something seemingly remote and why he does not write, or have written for him, a text to do with our own days. Although it should be remembered that the history of opera is intimately linked to the revival of antiquity (Orfeo was the first opera from which all else derives), it is a perfectly reasonable question and requires an answer.

Artists cannot and should not be required to explain or justify their work. But I would say that I was attracted to the Noh Theatre, which flourished in Japan five hundred years ago firstly, because it is an old classical theatre, combining word, music and movement which still survives in something like its original form (and it is the only classical theatre which does) and, secondly, because, in Europe at least, there exist translations of great poetic quality (by Arthur Waley) which have inspired modern poets and composers, in particular W. B. Yeats and B. Brecht with Weill (Der Jasager) and Benjamin Britten to either write ‘new’ Noh-plays or renew old ones. There would be no point to this if, without being a Japanese speaker, one were not able to some extent to understand the originals, their style of composition and the meaning of the words and adapt them to our own conditions.







Let me give some examples. Rosei the hero of Kantan describes himself as a ‘traveller’. Now in today’s terminology a traveller is a young discontent taking to the road in search of an alternative life style and often engaged in social protest, I have known some such and the words Rosei sings at the opening of Kantan, though based on the original, reflect what I think such a present-day youngster would feel and say. If this is understood everything that happens to him in the piece becomes relevant, including what he learns from his dreams and the subsequent decision about his own life.

The Lady of Damask Drum is, in the original Noh-text, a predecessor of many belles dames sans merci. In Yukio Mishima’s modern Noh-play, she does not coldly and cruelly initiate the events that lead to the gardener’s death; instead some naughty boys trick the gardener who shares the fantasies of many modern old men about pretty young girls (or boys). The tragedy that ensues not only affects the gardener, but more importantly the Lady herself, the object of intrusive male fantasy.

The original Noh includes a Chorus, which unlike the Chorus of Greek tragedy is not a commenting group, but an extension of the protagonist. The singing style ranges from declamatory to lyrical song and the accompaniment is for flute and two drummers, whose parts are independent, if complementary to the expression of the singing and dancing actors.

The musical style of these operas is determined by the way the words are set to music. When writing the words, I mirrored the conventions of the originals which distinguishes songs and quasi-madrigals which are in a syllabically determined verse and prose which is used for conversation and soliloquy. From Japanese practise I culled a free modality which characterizes action and protagonist but straightaway composed vocal melody with an independent bass from which I could derive harmony. In the Noh, flute and drum parts stand in an heterophonic relation to the voice and I retain this practise to create polyrhythmic structures, where vocal and instrumental lines are metrically independent though necessarily complementary.

The composition of the small orchestra consisting of violins, viola and cello with percussion, keyboard sampler and harp (and in Damask Drum alto flute and alto trombone) is somewhat Handelian in inspiration and by and large avoids the orientalism which might be thought to be appropriate. In this sense the style of these operas is a little nearer Weill’s Der Jasager than Boulez’s Marteau Sans Maitre, though elements of both might be detected.

Alexander Goehr