Paul Bunyan (operetta)
Encyclopedia
Paul Bunyan is an operetta
in two acts and a prologue composed by Benjamin Britten
to a libretto
by W. H. Auden
. It premiered at Columbia University
on May 5, 1941 to largely negative reviews, and Britten revised it in 1976. The story is based on the folkloric
American lumberjack
, Paul Bunyan
, with the music incorporating a variety of American styles, including folk songs
, blues
and hymn
s.
The old trees like life to be slow ("Since the birth Of the earth"), but are challenged by four young trees and three wild geese. The geese explain that the old trees will have to leave when a Man arrives: Paul Bunyan will be born at the next blue moon
. To the horror of the old trees, the moon turns blue ("It isn't very often the conservatives are wrong").
First ballad interlude
The Narrator recounts the birth and growth of Paul, who gained 346 pounds every week, became as tall as the Empire State Building
and had a stride of 3.7 miles ("The cold wind blew through the crooked thorn"). One night, he awoke to find that his forehead was being licked by Babe the Blue Cow. The two of them leave for the South, where Paul sets up a camp.
Paul recruits lumberjack
s from all over Europe ("My birthplace was in Sweden, it's a very long way off"). The Swedes quarrel over which of them should be foreman, but a Western Union
Boy bicycles in with a telegram from the King of Sweden, whose recommended foreman, Hel Helson, arrives and is duly appointed by Paul. However, there is still a need for some cooks who can provide the lumberjacks with nutritious food. Bad cooks Sam and Ben, devotees (respectively) of soup and beans, arrive ("Sam for Soups, Ben for beans"). Johnny Inkslinger, an impecunious book-keeper, also turns up, but wishes to be independent and refuses offers of soup, beans and recompense before travelling on. Paul predicts that, as Inkslinger has no resources, he will have to return. Sam and Ben recruit cats Moppet and Poppet, and the dog Fido, to aid them in their work ("The single creature lives a partial life").
It is bedtime. Paul introduces a "dream of warning", sung by a quartet of the defeated ("Gold in the North came the blizzard to say"). Inkslinger, equally defeated, returns and accepts the job of book-keeper.
Second ballad interlude
The Narrator describes how Paul went wife-hunting, found an appropriately-sized partner (Carrie), and married her ("The Spring came and the Summer and Fall"). A daughter, Tiny, was born, but her parents' marriage was unhappy, and she and Carrie left home. Some years later, Carrie died, and Paul, before her funeral, promised Tiny that he would be a better father.
Scene 2: The camp
While Paul is away, there is discontent at the unvarying rations of soup and beans ("Do I look the sort of fellow Whom you might expect to bellow"). Inkslinger tries to persuade Sam and Ben to vary the menu, but they walk away in a huff. The lumberjacks turn on Inkslinger, but are interrupted by the offstage voice of Slim ("In fair days and in foul Round the world and back"). He arrives and describes his attempts to "find himself" by continuous travelling ("I come from open spaces"). It turns out that he can cook flapjacks, cookies, fish, steak, and the loggers are appeased.
Paul returns with Tiny. Inkslinger, dispirited, tells Fido the story of his life, which he feels he has wasted ("It was out in the sticks that the fire Of my existence began"). The lumberjacks mob Tiny, who is still mourning her mother's death ("Whether the sun shine upon children playing"), but she only has eyes for Slim. Paul wants to know if there were any problems while he was away. Inkslinger tells him that Hel Helson broods too much and keeps bad company, and that some of the men, particularly one called John Shears, are tired of logging and want to take up farming. They part on good terms, and Paul muses on the subject of the Actual and the Possible as the curtain falls.
Paul summons the lumberjacks and asks those who would like to be farmers to accompany him to the land of Heart's Desire, where everything is fertile. Shears and the others rejoice ("It has always been my dream"). Paul leaves Hel Helson in charge, telling him that the Topsy-Turvey Mountain needs to be cleared.
Hel's four cronies try to persuade him to mount a rebellion against Paul and Inkslinger. He sends them away, but the voices of a Heron, the Moon, the Wind, a Beetle and a Squirrel tell him that he is a failure ("Heron, heron, winging by"). Fido attempts to console him ("Won't you tell me what's the matter?"), but Hel kicks him out. Moppet and Poppet rejoice that they are not sentimental, like dogs ("Let Man the romantic in vision espy").
When Paul returns, so do Hel's cronies, who persuade him to pick a fight with Paul. Tiny and Slim, oblivious of the sounds of the offstage fight, celebrate their love ("Move, move, from the trysting stone"). Hel, unconscious, is carried in ("Take away the body and lay it on the ice") . When he wakes up, he makes peace with Paul and rejects the cronies. The chorus hails a "great day of discovery" as Tiny and Slim continue their duet.
Third ballad interlude
The Narrator recounts the continuing success of the logging industry and of Slim and Tiny's love ("So Helson smiled and Bunyan smiled"). Eventually, Babe indicates to Paul that it is time to move on, and he realises that she is right. It is Christmas Eve.
Scene 2: The Christmas party
Amid the seasonal festivities, Inkslinger makes a number of announcements ("Dear friends with your leave this Christmas Eve"). Slim and Tiny will marry and move to Midtown Manhattan
("Carry her over the water"). Hel Helson will be joining the Administration in Washington to lead the Federal Plan of public works. John Shears has taken time off from his farm to join the party. As everyone cheers, the Western Union Boy reappears with a telegram from Hollywood. It is an invitation to Inkslinger to become a technical advisor for an all-star lumber picture! Finally, Paul takes his leave ("Now the task that made us friends In a common labour, ends"), and a Litany
("The campfire embers are black and cold") is sung. Inkslinger asks "Paul, who are you?", and Paul replies: "Where the night becomes the day, Where the dream becomes the fact, I am the Eternal guest, I am Way, I am Act".
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
in two acts and a prologue composed by Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
to a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
. It premiered at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
on May 5, 1941 to largely negative reviews, and Britten revised it in 1976. The story is based on the folkloric
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
American lumberjack
Lumberjack
A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...
, Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
, with the music incorporating a variety of American styles, including folk songs
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s.
Roles
| Role | Voice | Premiere cast, May 5, 1941 (conductor: Hugh Ross Hugh Ross (musician) Hugh C. M. Ross , was a choral director and conductor of the Schola Cantorum of New York.... ) |
|---|---|---|
| The Voice of Paul Bunyan | offstage spoken role for male voice | Milton Warchoff |
| Tiny, Paul's daughter | soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
Helen Marshall |
| Johnny Inkslinger | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
William Hess |
| Hot Biscuit Slim, a good cook | tenor | Charles Cammock |
| Narrator and Balladeer (in the Interludes) | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... or tenor |
Mordecai Bauman Mordecai Bauman Mordecai Bauman was an American baritone.-Biography:Mordecai Hirsch Bauman was born on March 2, 1912 to Allen and Minnie Bauman in the Bronx, New York City... |
| Sam Sharkey, a bad cook | tenor | Clifford Jackson |
| Ben Benny, another bad cook | bass | Eugene Bonham |
| Hel Helson, foreman | baritone | Bliss Woodward |
| Cross Crosshaulson , a Swede | bass | Walter Graf |
| Jen Jenson, a Swede | bass | Ernest Holcombe |
| Pete Peterson, a Swede | tenor | Lewis Pierce |
| Andy Anderson, a Swede | tenor | Ben Carpens |
| Fido, a dog | soprano | Pauline Kleinhesselink |
| Moppet, a cat | mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above... |
Harriet Greene |
| Poppet, a cat | mezzo-soprano | Augusta Dorn |
| Western Union Boy | tenor | Henry Bauman |
| John Shears, a farmer | baritone | Leonard Stocker |
| Quartet of the Defeated (Blues) | contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above... , tenor, baritone, bass |
Adelaide Van Way, Ben Carpens, Ernest Holcombe, Eugene Bonham |
| Four cronies of Hel Helson | four baritones | |
| Heron, Moon, Wind, Beetle, Squirrel | spoken roles | |
| lumberjacks, farmers, frontier women, animals, trees, wild geese | ||
Prologue
In the forestThe old trees like life to be slow ("Since the birth Of the earth"), but are challenged by four young trees and three wild geese. The geese explain that the old trees will have to leave when a Man arrives: Paul Bunyan will be born at the next blue moon
Blue moon
A blue moon can refer to the third full moon in a season with four full moons. Most years have twelve full moons that occur approximately monthly. In addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains roughly eleven days more than the lunar year of 12 lunations...
. To the horror of the old trees, the moon turns blue ("It isn't very often the conservatives are wrong").
First ballad interlude
The Narrator recounts the birth and growth of Paul, who gained 346 pounds every week, became as tall as the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
and had a stride of 3.7 miles ("The cold wind blew through the crooked thorn"). One night, he awoke to find that his forehead was being licked by Babe the Blue Cow. The two of them leave for the South, where Paul sets up a camp.
Act 1
Scene 1: A clearing in the forestPaul recruits lumberjack
Lumberjack
A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...
s from all over Europe ("My birthplace was in Sweden, it's a very long way off"). The Swedes quarrel over which of them should be foreman, but a Western Union
Western Union
The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S...
Boy bicycles in with a telegram from the King of Sweden, whose recommended foreman, Hel Helson, arrives and is duly appointed by Paul. However, there is still a need for some cooks who can provide the lumberjacks with nutritious food. Bad cooks Sam and Ben, devotees (respectively) of soup and beans, arrive ("Sam for Soups, Ben for beans"). Johnny Inkslinger, an impecunious book-keeper, also turns up, but wishes to be independent and refuses offers of soup, beans and recompense before travelling on. Paul predicts that, as Inkslinger has no resources, he will have to return. Sam and Ben recruit cats Moppet and Poppet, and the dog Fido, to aid them in their work ("The single creature lives a partial life").
It is bedtime. Paul introduces a "dream of warning", sung by a quartet of the defeated ("Gold in the North came the blizzard to say"). Inkslinger, equally defeated, returns and accepts the job of book-keeper.
Second ballad interlude
The Narrator describes how Paul went wife-hunting, found an appropriately-sized partner (Carrie), and married her ("The Spring came and the Summer and Fall"). A daughter, Tiny, was born, but her parents' marriage was unhappy, and she and Carrie left home. Some years later, Carrie died, and Paul, before her funeral, promised Tiny that he would be a better father.
Scene 2: The camp
While Paul is away, there is discontent at the unvarying rations of soup and beans ("Do I look the sort of fellow Whom you might expect to bellow"). Inkslinger tries to persuade Sam and Ben to vary the menu, but they walk away in a huff. The lumberjacks turn on Inkslinger, but are interrupted by the offstage voice of Slim ("In fair days and in foul Round the world and back"). He arrives and describes his attempts to "find himself" by continuous travelling ("I come from open spaces"). It turns out that he can cook flapjacks, cookies, fish, steak, and the loggers are appeased.
Paul returns with Tiny. Inkslinger, dispirited, tells Fido the story of his life, which he feels he has wasted ("It was out in the sticks that the fire Of my existence began"). The lumberjacks mob Tiny, who is still mourning her mother's death ("Whether the sun shine upon children playing"), but she only has eyes for Slim. Paul wants to know if there were any problems while he was away. Inkslinger tells him that Hel Helson broods too much and keeps bad company, and that some of the men, particularly one called John Shears, are tired of logging and want to take up farming. They part on good terms, and Paul muses on the subject of the Actual and the Possible as the curtain falls.
Act 2
Scene 1: A clearingPaul summons the lumberjacks and asks those who would like to be farmers to accompany him to the land of Heart's Desire, where everything is fertile. Shears and the others rejoice ("It has always been my dream"). Paul leaves Hel Helson in charge, telling him that the Topsy-Turvey Mountain needs to be cleared.
Hel's four cronies try to persuade him to mount a rebellion against Paul and Inkslinger. He sends them away, but the voices of a Heron, the Moon, the Wind, a Beetle and a Squirrel tell him that he is a failure ("Heron, heron, winging by"). Fido attempts to console him ("Won't you tell me what's the matter?"), but Hel kicks him out. Moppet and Poppet rejoice that they are not sentimental, like dogs ("Let Man the romantic in vision espy").
When Paul returns, so do Hel's cronies, who persuade him to pick a fight with Paul. Tiny and Slim, oblivious of the sounds of the offstage fight, celebrate their love ("Move, move, from the trysting stone"). Hel, unconscious, is carried in ("Take away the body and lay it on the ice") . When he wakes up, he makes peace with Paul and rejects the cronies. The chorus hails a "great day of discovery" as Tiny and Slim continue their duet.
Third ballad interlude
The Narrator recounts the continuing success of the logging industry and of Slim and Tiny's love ("So Helson smiled and Bunyan smiled"). Eventually, Babe indicates to Paul that it is time to move on, and he realises that she is right. It is Christmas Eve.
Scene 2: The Christmas party
Amid the seasonal festivities, Inkslinger makes a number of announcements ("Dear friends with your leave this Christmas Eve"). Slim and Tiny will marry and move to Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...
("Carry her over the water"). Hel Helson will be joining the Administration in Washington to lead the Federal Plan of public works. John Shears has taken time off from his farm to join the party. As everyone cheers, the Western Union Boy reappears with a telegram from Hollywood. It is an invitation to Inkslinger to become a technical advisor for an all-star lumber picture! Finally, Paul takes his leave ("Now the task that made us friends In a common labour, ends"), and a Litany
Litany
A litany, in Christian worship and some forms of Jewish worship, is a form of prayer used in services and processions, and consisting of a number of petitions...
("The campfire embers are black and cold") is sung. Inkslinger asks "Paul, who are you?", and Paul replies: "Where the night becomes the day, Where the dream becomes the fact, I am the Eternal guest, I am Way, I am Act".
Recordings
- Paul Bunyan – Plymouth Music Series Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Philip BrunellePhilip BrunellePhilip Brunelle is an American conductor and organist. He founded VocalEssence in 1969 and remains the artistic director today...
. Studio recording, 1987. Label: Virgin Classics - Paul Bunyan – Royal Opera HouseRoyal Opera HouseThe Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Richard HickoxRichard HickoxRichard Sidney Hickox CBE was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.-Early life:Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family...
. Recorded live from performances at Sadler's Wells TheatreSadler's Wells TheatreSadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
in London on April 23, 24, 28, 1999. Label: Chandos RecordsChandos RecordsChandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...