Program booklet »Animal Farm« by Wiener Staatsoper GmbH

ALEX ANDER R ASK ATOV

ANIMAL FARM

CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS P.

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION P.

PRÉFACE TO THE UKRAINIAN EDITION OF ANIMAL FARM GEORGE ORWELL P.

ECCENTRICITY, EXTRAVAGANCE, ENERGY SERGIO MORABITO

ANIMALS AS METAPHORS HARUN MAYE

EVERY ANIMAL RECALLS TO THEM AN IMMENSE MISFORTUNE MAX HORKHEIMER AND THEODOR W. ADORNO

OF SWINE AND MEN DAMIANO MICHIELETTO IN AN INTERVIEW P.

WHEN THE PLAY COMES TO LIFE ALEXANDER SODDY P.

THE SKYSCRAPER MAX HORKHEIMER

CRITICISM OF THE SOVIET REGIME GEORGE ORWELL P.

IMPRINT

ALEX ANDER R ASK ATOV

ANIMAL FARM OPERA in two acts, nine scenes and an epilogue Text by IAN BURTON & ALEXANDER RASKATOV from a novel by GEORGE ORWELL dedicated to IRINA ANTONOVNA SHOSTAKOVICH ORCHESTRA 2 flutes (1 and 2 double on piccolo, 2 doubles on alto flute), 2 oboes (2 doubles on cor anglais), 3 clarinets (1 doubles on Eb clarinet, 2 and 3 double on bass clarinet, 3 doubles on contrabass clarinet), 2 saxophones, 2 bassoons (1 and 2 double on contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets (1 doubles on piccolo trumpet), 3 trombones (3 doubles on contrabass trombone and bass trumpet), tuba, kettle drums, percussion (triangle, 3 cuckoo pipes, 2 cuícas, 4 cow bells, bamboo, 4 temple blocks, 3 wood blocks, 2 rattles, 2 slide whistles, 2 sirens, flexatone, lion’s roar, guiro, 4 bongos, 3 tom-toms, 3 congas, roto tom, bass drum, drums, hi-hat, 3 suspended cymbals, cymbals, bell tree, anvil, steel plate, small glockenspiel, 2 gongs, waterphone, 3 water gongs, temple gong, church bell, crotales, bells, vibraphone, marimba, steel drums, Thai gongs, plate bells, metronome), 2 harps, celesta, piano, cymbalom, electric guitar, electric bass guitar, strings

AUTOGRAPH SCORE Raskatov private archive, Orléans WORLD PREMIÈRE 3 MARCH 2023 Dutch National Opera VIENNA PREMIÈRE 28 FEBRUARY 2024 Wiener Staatsoper DURATION

2 H 25 MIN

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

A N IM A L FA R M

SYNOPSIS ACT 1 Reeling drunk, Farmer Jones molests his wife. In the night, the animals assemble to listen to the old boar Old Major. He explains to the animals how they are enslaved by humans and teaches them the revolutionary song “Beasts of Farmland”. The animals have very different reactions to Old Major’s ideas. The raven Blacky presents the prospect of a post-revolutionary life “on Sugarcandy Mountain”. With the courage of despair, the animals rise up against the brutalisation by their master. The rebellion is successful. Taken completely by surprise, Farmer Jones and his wife are driven from the farm. The former Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm by the revolutionaries. The two pigs Snowball and Napoleon proclaim the seven commandments of Animalism which guarantee freedom for all. They are written on the wall of the barn and popularized in the slogan “Four legs good, two legs bad”. When the donkey Benjamin asks who is to get the milk, the pig Squealer explains the pigs must have it to strengthen them in their duty to prevent Jones’s return. The attempt by the Joneses to recapture the farm with help from Pilkington’s neighbouring farm is defeated, despite losses. The carthorse Boxer, who fought particularly courageously, is declared an “Animal Hero First Class” by Napoleon. Napoleon himself makes the award. The filly Mollie is seduced by Pilkington’s gifts and leaves the farm secretly. Snowball and Napoleon disagree on all questions of leadership. The construction of a windmill proposed by Snowball which could ease the work of the animals and raise their standard of living is frustrated by Napoleon, who argues that the current priority is the need for firearms. Their conflict escalates. Snowball has to flee. Napoleon denounces him as a traitor, declares himself chairman of the committee of pigs, and as such orders construction of the windmill. He also announces a trading relationship with Pilkington, although this was previously prohibited for the animals. There are also rumours that the pigs had moved into the empty farmhouse. The literate goat Muriel is asked to read the commandment against animals sleeping in beds. But the commandment now only prohibits sleeping in a bed with sheets. The windmill is destroyed by storm and lightning, Napoleon blames this on Snowball’s sabotage. He sentences him to death. Previous pages: ANDREI POPOV as SQUEALER KARL LAQUIT as YOUNG ACTRESS

SYNOPSIS

ACT 2 Napoleon’s henchmen assassinate Snowball as an alleged “secret agent”. His alleged accomplices are paraded in show trials and bloodily massacred. The mare Clover sees all her efforts to establish a just community cast in doubt. The animals try to find purpose and comfort in singing “Beasts of Farmland” together, but Napoleon bans the song. The actress Pigetta, who tries to refuse Squealer, is slaughtered. When Muriel tries to read the commandment prohibiting one animal killing another, she makes out the qualification that this only applies “without reason”. The poetic pig Minimus celebrates Napoleon in a hymn of praise. Napoleon learns that Pilkington is accusing him of fraud and is attacking the windmill with his people. The animals are able to repel the invaders, but the windmill is blown up. Despite severe losses in the ranks of the animals, Napoleon has himself celebrated as the victor. They toast the fallen. Now, alcohol is no longer forbidden to animals, just excessive consumption. Boxer collapses under the strain of reconstruction. The animals are unable to prevent him being dragged off to the knacker’s yard. Squealer, who claims to have gone with Boxer to the vet in the hopes of healing, brings back his alleged last words: “Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right!” Benjamin gets Muriel to read the last commandment left on the barn wall. It reads: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

TIMELINE

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1883 THE DEATH OF KARL MARX Karl Marx, one of the principal thinkers behind socialism, dies on 14 March. His ideas had a great influence on the socialist and communist movements of the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond.

1924–1927 STALIN SEIZES POWER Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Soviet Union, dies in 1924. Joseph Stalin gradually gains power and neutralises his rivals one by one, including Leon Trotsky. By 1927, Stalin has absolute power.

1917–1925 RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR When Tsar Nicholas II abdicates in March 1917, after constant protests by the starving masses, a chaotic period follows in Russia. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks (radical communists) seize power. This is followed by a civil war that is ultimately won by the Bolsheviks in 1923.

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

KARL MARX, around 1848

Beginning of the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, 1917

TIMELINE

LEON TROTSKY, IN EXILE around 1935

JOSEPH STALIN, 1937

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1936–1938 GREAT TERROR In a series of persecutions unleashed between 1936 and 1938, Stalin eliminates his opponents, both real and (especially) imaginary, in all ranks of society. In show trials, numerous high-ranking party officials and military men are accused of being complicit in a big conspiracy led by Trotsky, now living in exile.

1940 TROTSKI IS MURDERED

1936–1938 GEORGE ORWELL FIGHTS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Trotsky, now living in Mexico after leading a peripatetic life for some years, is murdered on the orders of Stalin.

The British author George Orwell and his wife join the Republican militias in Spain, who are fighting against the right-wing troops of General Franco. The effect of Stalin’s Great Terror is felt here too when divisions arise in the Republican camp. The Trotskyite militias that Orwell has joined is beset by its former allies. Orwell and his wife are forced to leave Spain.

TIMELINE

1953 THE DEATH OF STALIN 1945 PUBLICATION OF ANIMAL FARM George Orwell finishes his manuscript in 1944 but it takes a while for him to find a publisher willing to print the book. Various publishers reject the script, in part because they fear it could harm relations with the Soviet Union, at that point a partner in the war against Nazi Germany.

Joseph Stalin dies on 5 March 1953. His funeral is on 9 March. Three years later, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev starts a process of undoing Stalin’s legacy, but it is not until Gorbachev’s reforms in the second half of the 1980s that complete openness about Stalin’s reign of terror becomes possible.

1947 RADIO PLAY AND THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS In January 1947, the BBC broadcasts a radio adaptation written by Orwell himself. The first translations of Animal Farm, into Polish and Ukainian, appear that same year. In both cases, the translations are published in Western Europe, beyond the reach of the Soviet Union. The first Dutch translation is released later that year. The book is translated into dozens of languages in the years that follow.

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

First publication of ANIMAL FARM, 1945

TIMELINE

1954 CARTOON A cartoon version of Animal Farm is released. It is made by a British animation studio and is co-financed by the CIA, the American security service. In this film, the other farm animals eventually rise up against the oppressive regime of the pigs. A second film version follows in 1999, this time with computer-animated animals.

JOSEPH STALIN, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT & WINSTON CHURCHILL at the TEHERAN CONFERENCE, 1943

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1988 FIRST PUBLICATION IN THE SOVIET UNION The first Russian translation of Animal Farm was published abroad in 1950, but the publisher (who sympathised with the old tsarist regime) had censored the passages that criticised the Russian Orthodox Church. Animal Farm only appears in the Soviet Union itself, in the Latvian magazine Rodnik, after Gorbachev’s reforms.

1984 MUSICAL ADAPTATION The most well-known stage adaption of Animal Farm is the musical form 1984 by the director and writer Peter Hall. To maintain the essence of the book as a fable, Hall introduces a narrator, a boy who is reading Orwell’s book out loud. Adian Mitchell wrote some of the lyrics, which were set to music by Richard Peaslee.

TIMELINE

1991 DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION The reforms introduced by Gorbachev were aimed at improving welfare and prosperity in the Soviet Union, but they also led to various republics splitting off from Russia, including Ukraine, the Baltic states and Georgia. In 1991, Boris Yeltsin is elected president in democratic elections. In December of that year, the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.

ANIMAL FARM AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

First ukrainian version of ANIMAL FARM, 1947

SERGIO MORABITO

ECCENTRICITY, EXTRAVAGANCE, ENERGY ALEXANDER RASKATOV’S ANIMAL FARM AND THE THREE ES

Alexander Raskatov was approaching his first opera in 1989 at the age of 36 – The Pit and the Pendulum, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story. However, the orchestration was left incomplete, after his hopes of performance proved vain. Eighteen years went by before Pierre Audi, then director of the Dutch National Opera, was impressed by his instrumentation and expansion of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death for the 2007 Salzburg Festival and invited him to write an opera for Amsterdam. The composer was given carte blanche, from the choice of the subject to the casting of the roles. The 2010 world première of A Dog’s Heart, based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Heart of a Dog, was a triumph. Eight more years passed before the 2018 world première at the Opéra de Lyon of Raskatov’s next opera, GerMANIA, based on Heiner Müller’s late play Germania 3 – Ghosts at Dead Man, followed in the same year by Zatmenie (Eclipse). This commission by a Russian patron deals with the Decembrist uprising and was premièred at St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre – although only in a concert performance. In 2023 the Amsterdam public celebrated Raska-

tov’s return for the world première of Animal Farm, based on George Orwell’s famous “fairy story”, in a coproduction with Wiener Staatsoper. Alexander Raskatov has always participated energetically in developing the libretti for his operas. For example, he created the libretto for A Dog’s Heart himself from Bulgakov’s novel. He wanted – and was allowed – to modify Heiner Müller’s play to suit his own ideas. He actually wrote the text to Zatmenie entirely independently, based on testimony from letters, memoires and poems, and including fragments from Dostoyevsky’s The House of the Dead. It was the same with Animal Farm, although the composer freely admits that until the enquiry from the Dutch National Opera, he only knew Orwell’s novel as a title. This was because the book, which owes its global status not least to the fact that it was weaponised in the Cold War (totally against Orwell’s intentions), was strictly prohibited in the Soviet Union until 1988. Raskatov was born not far from Moscow’s Red Square to a Russian-Jewish family, on the day of Stalin’s burial in 1953. After reading Orwell’s novel, he commented that like Bulgakov’s and

E C C E N T R IC I T Y, E X T R AVAG A N C E , E N E RG Y

Müller’s works it reflected his history and that of his family. This is because Orwell’s story is a parable about the perversion of the Russian Revolution under Stalin’s dictatorship. The animals on a squalid farm revolt against their tyrannical owners, but soon come under the rule of a new leader from their own ranks. “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Orwell’s intention was to dispel Western illusions about the alleged socialist paradise in the East – illusions which were trying to actively suppress and deny facts ranging from the show trials and deportations through the genocide and Holodomor to the gulags. Raskatov fundamentally revised the libretto already created by Ian Burton on a commission by the Danish National Opera but left it in English. In Raskatov’s view, the libretto as delivered had a more epic, oratorio structure. The “locomotive of the drama”, the actual energy of the story, had been handed off to a narrator. “But this is completely the wrong way round!” In addition, Raskatov felt the sentences were far too long, with too many descriptive passages. He felt this was “poison for an opera”, with boredom guaranteed. Raskatov accordingly shortened and condensed the text, and forced the narrative to proceed in graphic situations, as far as possible. By including original quotes from Stalin, Trotsky, Comintern General Secretary Bukharin and secret police chief Beria, Raskatov also added documentary highlights of the pathology of the Soviet system. Raskatov largely followed the main events of the novel, although omitting the neighbouring

farm owner Frederick (who represents Hitler), but added two scenes of his own. First, the assassination ordered by Stalin (“Napoleon”) of his former ally Trotsky (“Snowball”), in exile in Mexico, and a scene of one of the documented sexual atrocities of Beria (“Squealer”). In this, Beria hands a bouquet to a young actress trying to resist him, explaining that the flowers are to decorate her grave after her rape and murder. “How can you have an opera without love and murder?” Raskatov drily observes. For his setting he developed a “scalpel style” (as he himself calls it) which outlines events sharply and in high contrast. “Opera is primarily theatre and play. The communicative parameters are more important here than in any other musical genre,” Raskatov explains. “Unlike the symphony or chamber music, opera isn’t a ‘pure’ genre. It demands an open horizon and a form of polystylism. You can see this as early as Mozart. In an opera you can put all kinds of things in a new and sometimes contradictory context to achieve paradoxical effects. Opera isn’t a purist or academic form. It needs to burst with life.” Raskatov’s score works with references to the musical culture of his country – Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov – and reminiscences of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Kurt Weill’s songs, the musical sounds of the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, whose historic events the novel reflects. “For me, it’s important for every opera, regardless of its story or which language it’s sung in – Russian, German, or French – to focus on the semantic values of the text. Another focus is dramaturgic, the tension there has to be between singers, orchestra, the sub-

SERGIO MORABITO

ject itself and the staging. At the same time, there’s a sort of ‘acoustic shock’ among the singers. This is why I love ensembles in operas so much. In an ensemble of soloists there’s a ‘conflict’ between the tessituras, the different types of voices and their overtones. Basically, I’ve written Animal Farm for two orchestras, one of them working in the pit, while the other, the orchestra of singers, works on the stage. Just imagine, I treat the singers as a vocal orchestra!” Some of Raskatov’s dramaturgic decisions are certainly due to this preference for the ‘meta-instrument’ of a vocal orchestra like this. His score has no fewer than 21 soloist roles, covering the full spectrum of the human vocal range, where each one has a very original profile. These acoustic characters are then meshed in the score kaleidoscopically and nested. It is no accident that the highly virtuoso interactions of the solo voices are reminiscent of the ensembles in Verdi’s Falstaff, which Raskatov describes as “one of my favourite operas”. In contrast to the infinite expansion in modern music of the techniques for generating and articulating sounds for the classical instruments, Raskatov believes that the potential of the human voice is far from exhausted. He has avidly sought inspiration in the whinnying, grunting, bleating, lowing, screeching, gobbling and squeaking animals in his original to create entirely new mutations and alienations. “At the same time, animal fur or feathers cover entirely human physiognomy,” Raskatov notes. His physical musical fantasy finds acoustic equivalents to Orwell’s poetic precision and humour, which give each individual animal their own personality.

“I need to know who I’m writing for,” Raskatov says. “That’s very important. There’s a world of difference between getting an abstract commission for an orchestra or ensemble where you don’t know the artists at all, and writing for people you know and like.” Raskatov demands his interpreters commit to the absolute priority of the “3 Es” – Eccentricity, Extravagance and Energy. Consequently, a group of vocal extreme athletes has accompanied Raskatov in all his operatic adventures to date. One is Elena Vassilieva, the grande dame of the eastern European avantgarde, who has given us (for example) a complete recording of Edison Denisov’s song cycles. Raskatov has created the breeches part of Blacky for her dramatic coloratura, which defined one of the two competing voices of the dog (the “evil” one!) in A Dog’s Heart. The starting point was the figure of Moses, the tame raven, the “spy and tale-bearer” who sleeps in the barn and is Farmer Jones’s spoiled pet (a parody of the cosy relationship between the Orthodox Church and Tsarism). Moses follows the fleeing Joneses into exile in chapter two of the novel, only returning in the ninth of the ten chapters under the patronage of Napoleon, the “Leader”, to comfort the disappointed revolutionaries with the prospect of the “Sugarcandy Mountain” up in the sky. By contrast, the abrupt changes of register of this eminence grise, her ricochet effects borrowed from the strings and her husky, throaty raucous singing are present throughout the opera. Gennady Bezzubenkov, who was Stalin in GerMANIA (naturally singing in Russian), brings his basso profundo to Old Major in Animal Farm, the award-winning and ageing white boar

E C C E N T R IC I T Y, E X T R AVAG A N C E , E N E RG Y

who shortly before his death bequeaths his dream of freedom and equality to the animals (Old Major combines features of Marx and Lenin). The pig Squealer was created in Amsterdam by James Kryshak, who presented Hitler in GerMANIA as a “hysterical buffo tenor” (Andrei Popov will sing the part in Vienna). Squealer is identified with Stalin’s close confidant and foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, and also with the secret service chief Lavrentiy Beria. “Squealer” is English slang for “informer, traitor”. In his opera, Raskatov shows him as a vocally “crazy” propagandist and informer. Karl Laquit sang the “Pink Giant” in GerMANIA, a serial killer in East Germany during the period of German reunification. For him, Raskatov composed the donkey Benjamin, who tries to keep out of everything, although he sees through the propaganda, but the end is unable to stop his only friend, the cart horse Boxer, from being hauled off to the knacker’s yard. Laquit’s four-octave range also enables him to sing the episodic character of Pigetta, the young actress who doesn’t survive the rendezvous with Beria (aka Squealer). Michael Griffke, who was also in GerMANIA, chants the revolutionary litanies in a “tenor cantor voice” and also portrays the despair of Snowball, the reference to Trotsky, one

of the fathers of the Revolution which swallowed him. Raskatov composed a showcase aria to display the vocal agi lity of the phenomenal countertenor Artem Krutko. The vocal feats in “Father of Ani mals” – trills, staccati, leaps, scales, triplet clusters – seem as if they could be taken from a book of Farinelli’s variations. Napoleon’s neo-feudal – no, neo- absolutist reign had its own “castrato” who warbled odes to order. And the stupendous Holly Flack as the pretty white mare performs vocal acrobatics in a range that could be described as topping the Queen of the Night. All the other soloists along with the chorus and children’s chorus have parts which are equally challenging and rewarding. Asked about a message or statement by his opera, Raskatov quotes Pushkin, who at the end of another fairy story (Tale of the Golden Cockerel) wrote “This story isn‘t true, but there‘s a hint in it; a lesson for all with eyes to see.” Certainly, in the “postfactual” age of populism, the basic question of Animal Farm is acute for both a Russia rapidly re-Stalinized since the start of the millennium and for the West. How can popular leaders use a cynical and manipulative rhetoric of freedom, security and self-defence to impose ruthless and aggressive power and self-interest?

DIRECTOR DAMIANO MICHIELETTO TALKS TO OLIVER LÁNG

OF SWINE AND MEN ol

How did the Animal Farm project come about? What was the original idea? dm The Animal Farm project came from my desire to find suitable stories for an opera today. This is a story which is very dear to me. I’m not so concerned with the future of opera as such, it‘s simply an attempt to create something which could be part of the heritage of opera in future. When I remembered George Orwell’s Animal Farm, I realised at once that the story has the right ingredients for an opera. There are characters that are very clearly and precisely defined. There’s a chorus. And the allegory of the story means you can create different levels of narrative and address different levels of audience – experienced opera goers as well as young people. I thought, this is a story which can be very colourful and also poses a musical challenge because of the presence of animals. And Raskatov was immediately enthusiastic about the project! ol But Animal Farm isn’t a fairy story, is it? MICHAEL GNIFFKE as SNOWBALL GENNADY BEZZUBENKOV as OLD MAJOR

dm Animal Farm can also be a fairy story, and there’s an animated film of it. Naturally, you can tell the story in these terms. Once upon a time, there was a farm where animals lived who dreamed of freeing themselves of their master. They got together, and so on. But Animal Farm isn’t just that. Of course, the fable is an allegory, and its author has drawn very clear and precise parallels to a historical situation in the Soviet Union and to individuals such as Stalin and Trots ky. Animal Farm is a social and political allegory. What I like is that the story’s like Æsop’s Fables, the animals are always conveying a moral, political or social message. Animal Farm is a story in which the animals are talking about democracy, politics, violence, chicanery, injustices, totalitarianism and revolution, in other words issues which are part of humanity and which are also relevant in our current situation. In any case, I always wanted to avoid it becoming just a fairy story. I wanted the animals to be symbols, dramatic and disturbing. Because it’s about life and death.

DAMIANO MICHIELETTO

It’s about sorrow and a desire for happiness. ol Orwell wrote his story at a specific time, in a specific situation, as you said – he made an issue of Communism. In your opinion, is the story of Animal Farm timeless and universal? Always relevant, including today? dm That’s exactly the effectiveness of Animal Farm! The fact that the story – like all the classics – goes beyond the historical circumstances of its origins. Orwell makes concrete references to the Soviet Union, but he’s also talking about the mechanisms which social processes are based on. He said that the most important passage was the one where the pigs manage to justify just why they had to have the milk. In Animal Farm, the milk is the most valuable thing, something everyone would like to have. The pigs, who have just seized power, convince the others with a lie and by spreading fear. They say something on the lines of “We’re forced to drink milk because we carry a great responsibility! And you have to give it to us, as otherwise Mr. Jones could come back.” So we have the threat, and the fear. If you don’t do this, that can happen. Ruling by spreading fear is a mechanism often found in our society. Including to justify injustices. So you can see how the story carries beyond the particular time it was written in. ol How much realism does the story need, how much can the fable handle? dm Fables don’t need to be realistic. In Animal Farm we find pigs that can speak and get together with goats, chickens, and cows to revolt. The fantasy allows you to speak more freely, because everyone knows it’s fiction.

This is the power of the mask. If an actor puts one on, it doesn’t smother their personality. It makes it explosive, universal, makes it transcend the words they’re speaking at the moment. So, telling a story with animal masks liberates the imagination. It’s interesting for me because this gives me the freedom to leave convention behind and escape from realism. ol But what are we seeing on the stage? People or animals? dm You’re seeing animals on the stage which become people at the end. This was Orwell’s metaphor as well. Animal Farm ends with a brief comment that says that finally there was no recognisable difference between pigs and humans. The pigs who rebelled and tried to distinguish themselves as far as possible from what represents humanity, ultimately took on all its features and characteristics. As if they wanted to start again from the beginning. They become the enemy that they originally wanted to defeat. ol And what do we learn from this? dm Animal Farm teaches us first and foremost that opera has a future. This is the most important thing, in my opinion. It’s good to try something, to write new libretti, it’s good working with a musician and finding a language which excites the audience. A language which doesn’t feel artificial. Because sometimes with contemporary opera I have a painful feeling that I can’t get into it, if I hear a language which seems elitist. I think we can learn from this opera, from Raskatov’s music, this project, to have more trust in opera. We can learn that we didn’t invent music theatre, and that it won’t die with us. That’s the greatest thing for me! And we can also learn some-

OF SWINE AND MEN

thing about the social dynamics which “I have a dream,” to say “I dream of we are also unfortunately experienc- something which doesn’t exist.” This character at the beginning gives the ing to some extent today, and which are part of power. Because power al- downbeat to the story, and without ways has a need to create rules to jus- this, the whole opera would be stuck in the blocks. But Old Major only has tify itself. And those in power want to do everything to keep it – even unjust- one scene before he dies. We’d like to ask him, was it just a dream, or ly, violently, and antidemocratically. I did you really believe it could have think this story can appeal to people today with its strong message of de- become true? Was it just a beautiful thought, or something worth dying mocracy and individual freedom. for? I have no answer for this, because ol Who is the main character in dreams can often turn into nightmares Animal Farm? Those in power? – something that starts out as a worthy The people? idea can become dreadful, resulting in dm I would say the main character is fear, violence, abuse. When Orwell is actually The Animal Farm, that is, the group of animals. This includes, for ex- referring to Stalin, he naturally thinks of the gulags, the persecutions, the asample, the chorus, which is involved in 90 per cent of the events on stage. This sassinations, all the people defamed is pretty unusual for an opera! And nat- in the name of a revolutionary ideal of equality. In reality, the worst and most urally Napoleon, as well. He’s the pig who becomes the leader of the group, dreadful things were done! What was who stands somewhat in the back- once a dream became a nightmare. This is part of the complexity of the ground initially, doesn’t often show fable. himself, and then seizes power and becomes a dictator. He’s the metaphor ol Damiano Michieletto as a direcOrwell was using for Stalin, and he’s tor, what would he change in the the first to slowly let the mask slip and world? the first to gradually take on human dm I really don’t know… How would I change the world? Politically… I characteristics. don’t know. I don’t think I can change ol Is Animal Farm just a political and social inevitability, a dys- anything. I have no political power. topia? Or are there moments of I think, the most important thing I can do as a director with my team is to try utopia, of hope as well? dm What I like very much is that Ani- and create something stimulating for the public. This is one way to change mal Farm begins with a dream. There’s something. Not the world. But it arousa character, Old Major, who says, “I had a dream.” And we know lots of sto- es emotions and does something to get people to go to the theatre and turn ries that start this way. The dream is a projection of something unreal, some- the stage into something living. Even in a world which is increasingly domthing that doesn’t exist, which makes it utopian. I dream of a world in which inated by technology and filtered by it. there’s no more injustice, I dream of I can try to make the stage something a world where … Martin Luther King which is risky, to something uncomalso began his famous speech with fortable and surprising.

OF SWINE AND MEN

And how political is theatre? Not just yours, but as an institution, generally? dm Well, the theatre is political in the sense that it relates to the polis, the citizenry, the community. Just by virtue of the fact that you’re taking part in an event. When I think of the future of opera, I think these social and political themes are the most interesting. The opera has the possibility – including for the many people working together on a performance – of being a mirror of society, and it can take a critical look at the society. My dream is that we will succeed in finding a language which ideally unites words and music, as they did at the end of the 16th century, when opera was invented. And I’d like to see us find a socially and politically focused view, as they did in ancient Greece. Ultimately, I’m excited by stories which relate to the world we live in. ol Is there a moment in the opera which you find particularly impressive? dm There’s a moment in Animal Farm which really puzzled me to begin with. This is a scene which Raskatov inserted, and which isn’t part of Orwell’s story. Raskatov came up with a character called Pigetta, a singer who was pursued by Squealer, a pig at Napoleon’s side. The scene is a quote. It’s as if we went to the opera and saw this singer who an admirer sent flowers. She thinks the flowers are for her

beauty and fame. But the admirer tells her, no – these are flowers for your grave. Raskatov used this quote, which is from someone who actually existed in the Soviet Union, for the opera. So there’s a biographical link between this scene and the history of the Soviet Union which I’ve twisted in a surreal but dramatic way. This has become one of the most emblematic scenes in the opera. ol Finally, can you describe Raskatov’s music from your point of view? dm I really like the fact that Raskatov is a composer who seeks dialogue with the audience rather than staying remote. He puts himself in the audience’s place, and says, I want to write music with a direct, popular connection with the public. I also feel an echo of Shostakovich in his musical world. Raskatov mixes genres, plays with vocal extremes. In other words, I like him because he doesn’t reduce his language to an orchestral or technical exercise – he keeps the story in mind. He worked a lot on the libretto himself, to make it more suitable for the theatre. And he has a great sense of the theatrical. His music, the way he creates characters, is very theatrical. Apart from that it was very easy to work with his music because it offers endless opportunities to create characters and a world. His music is very rich, captivating. And I think that’s very, very appealing for the audience!

KARL LAQUIT as BENJAMIN

ALEXANDER SODDY

WHEN THE PLAY COMES TO LIFE The particular attraction of performing a work by a living composer, involving them in the development of the interpretation, engaging them in a fertile artistic dialogue is obvious, and is one of the finest experiences in being an interpreter. Which is why I was so happy to be collaborating in this way with Alexander Raskatov in the Wiener Staatsoper première of his Animal Farm. The numerous discussions lasting for hours in which we read and anal ysed the score together started very early on, while my colleague was conducting the world première and subsequent performances in Amsterdam. I had questions, suggestions, proposals – interpretation of a musical work is ultimately a creative, living process, a carbon copy of the Amsterdam performances wouldn’t have been enough for me. And Raskatov was very open and interested in these discussions and adopted many ideas, so that ultimately we had a sort of Viennese version of Animal Farm. Most of the changes had ISABEL SIGNORET as MURIEL

less to do with structural aspects than expressive ones, the interpretative approach. But they included the occasional general pause, a changed tempo and a few minor cuts which helped focus the action. There was also the significant issue that voices were electronically amplified in Amsterdam, which naturally won’t be the case at Wiener Staatsoper. Something that’s important in Raskatov’s work is his involvement with earlier great composers and Russian folklore. This is why when working on Animal Farm and even listening to it, you’re struck by reminiscences of Shostakovitch or Prokofiev. Like Richard Strauss in his day, virtually all significant contemporary composers have a nearly encyclopaedic knowledge of earlier styles and musical languages, influences and contexts. This knowledge is part of their craft, a tool in the creative process. As a result, there are certain deliberate parallels between Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Minsk and Animal

ALEXANDER SODDY

Farm in terms of irony, social polemics and political satire. These are atmo spheric quotes which Raskatov used here when Animal Farm is taking a critical approach to Stalinism, Soviet dictatorship, and the emergence of dictatorships generally. However, this knowledge of other styles and readiness to be inspired by them has nothing to do with superficial eclecticism. Quite the opposite. It’s very exciting to see how Raskatov in particular plays with these influences, uses them and translates them so brilliantly into his own musical language. Another remarkable thing about the Animal Farm score is how tightly everything is interconnected and related. Nothing seems abstract or accidental. Every note that is sung has an important function in the harmonic structure at that moment, and conversely the orchestra is always one component in the vocal creation. An instrument or group of instruments repeatedly doubles the rhythmic and/ or harmonic structure of the vocal line – the orchestra unrolls as a beautiful carpet which the singers can create on. Talking of singers, the opera has a very large number of different roles (21 in all) and Raskatov manages to give each of these characters their own musical identity. Many are very extreme, such as the donkey Benjamin, who has to make regular leaps in pitch like a donkey’s hee-haw, the raven Blacky or the filly Mollie, who has to ascend to stratospheric vocal heights. These animal versions of speaking and singing are supported by a very striking rhythm which can almost be described as an individual tonal colour. By contrast, the pig Napoleon has a perfectly “normal” vocal style, includ-

ing an ironic aria. This is no accident – he is the character who takes on the most “human” characteristics in the course of the opera. But the one thing they all have in common is that each of them leaves their musical signature for periods and dives into lyrical moments which are like oases of beauty. In addition to the numerous solo roles, there is also the chorus. This is present everywhere and symbolises the simple passive crowd who can be manipulated, don’t understand the situation, are happy to be led and make it possible at all for the pigs to acquire their unlimited power. It cannot be compared to the chorus in ancient Greece, as it has no objective perspective to comment reflectively on the action. The chorus in Animal Farm is merely the helpless victim and reflection of a deplorable development. An impressive feature which deserves special mention is the size and diversity of the orchestra! The percussion section in particular is incredibly well equipped. I must confess that I found very exciting instruments here which I’d never heard of before. For example, the waterphone. It looks like a small, peculiar piece of furniture filled with water, stroked with a double bass bow, and emitting a thrilling, celestial sound. Or the cuíca, a Brazilian friction drum. Although I have a lot of experience with contemporary music, my tonal horizon has been enjoyably expanded by Animal Farm. Besides the percussion, there’s a piano, celesta, electric guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, and a piccolo trumpet, played by the first trumpet. Then there’s the classical orchestra, with several of the woodwind players playing several instruments –

WHEN THE PLAY COMES TO LIFE

so they have their hands full. Purely in terms of space, the size of the orchestra is a challenge for any opera house. In Amsterdam, they even railed off a significant part of the stalls and added it to the pit. Naturally, this won’t happen at Wiener Staatsoper. But even here there isn’t quite enough room, although it can accommodate even the huge Elektra orchestra. However, we found a good solution. A few of the heavy percussion instruments which are less rhythmically intense, such as the large plate gongs, are placed in the organ room on the sixth floor of Wiener Staatsoper. The musicians can see and hear me on monitors, and their sound is transmitted directly to the auditorium. Incidentally, this is also done with the anvils in Rheingold, so it’s not an unusual situation or even a new one for the house. The score in all its complexity is certainly a challenge not only to the singers, the chorus and the orchestra, but also to the conductor. As the structure, the flow of the piece hardly stays

unchanged for seven or eight bars, organisation is essential. You can respond spontaneously during the performance to the numerous demanding transitions, the contra-rhythmic passages, in which for example you find crotchet triplets and quintuplets in a 2/4 bar. Every section needs its own solution, which has to be established and well grooved in during rehearsals. Ultimately, everything has to be worked on to the point where I can focus on what is essential during the performance – the story and the intensity to bring it to life. Because one of the great things about this piece is Raskatov’s mastery in telling the story through his music, including clever depiction of the multiple interactions between the actors. Raskatov succeeds in packaging George Orwell’s warning perfectly and transferring it to the medium of theatre. And that gives me great pleasure, as an Englishman who grew up with Orwell’s work and believes that he is one of the most important English authors.

MAX HORKHEIMER

THE SKYSCRAPER A cross-section of the structure of society of the present day would have to show approximately the following: At the top, the leading trust magnates who are however antagonizing each other trust magnates of the various powerful capitalist groups; below the smaller magnates, the big landowners and the whole staff of important employees; below them – split into individual strata – the masses of independent professionals and lesser employees, the political handymen, the military men and professors, of engineers and office managers down to the lady typists; further below, the remnants of self-employed small characters, the craftsmen, shopkeepers and farmers e tutti quanti [and all of them], then the proletariat, from the highest paid skilled strata of labourers via the unskilled to the permanently unemployed, poor, old and sick. Underneath this only begins the actual foundation of the misery from which this building rises because we have so far only spoken of the highly capitalist countries, and their whole existence is supported by the dreadful machinery of exploitation which functions in the semi-colonial and fully colonial territories, that is, in the by far largest part of this planet. Vast areas of the Balkans are a house of torture, the mass misery in India, China, Africa transcends all concepts. Below the spaces in which, in the millions, the coolies of the earth perish in misery, one would then have to depict the indescribable, unimaginable suffering of the animals, the animal hell in human society, the sweat, the blood, the desperation of the animals. One speaks frequently, these days, of the “intuition of essence” [Wesensschau]. Whoever has once “intuited” [seen] the “essence” of the skyscraper on whose highest floors our philosophers are allowed to philosophize will no longer wonder why they know so little of this, their real height at which they find themselves, and

THE SKYSCRAPER

that they only always talk about an imagined height; he [such as person] knows, and they themselves might suspect that otherwise they might become dizzy. He [such a person] is no longer surprised that they would rather set up a system of values than one of disvalues, that they rather talk in detail about “man in general” than about concrete individuals, about existence per se rather than their own existence: for if they did, they could be punished and forced to move down to a lower floor. He [such as person] is no longer surprised that they chattered about the “eternal,” for their chatter holds, as a component of the mortar, this building of present-day humanity together. This building, whose cellar is a slaughterhouse and whose roof is a cathedral, truly affords, from the windows of the upper floors, a beautiful view of the starry sky. Dawn and decline: notes 1926-1931 and 1950-1969 (New York 1978)

GEORGE ORWELL

ORWELL’S PRÉFACE TO THE UKRAINIAN EDITION OF ANIMAL FARM The Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm was intended for Ukrainians living in the camps for Displaced Persons in Germany under British and American administration after World War II. These, as indicated in a letter from the man who organised the translation and distribution, Ihor Szewczenko, were people who supported the October Revolution and who were determined to defend what had been won, but who had turned against “the counter-revolutionary Bonapartism of Stalin” and the “Russian nationalistic exploitation of the Ukrainian people.” They were simple people, peasants and workers, some half- educated, but all of whom read eagerly. For these people he asked Orwell to write a special introduction. The English original has been lost and the version reproduced here is a recasting back into English of the Ukrainian version. Orwell insisted that he receive no royalties for this edition, nor for other translations intended for those too poor to buy them (e.g., editions in Persian and Telugu). Orwell himself paid the produc-

tion costs of a Russian-language edition printed on thin paper, which was intended for soldiers and others behind the Iron Curtain. I have been asked to write a preface to the Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm. I am aware that I write for readers about whom I know nothing, but also that they too have probably never had the slightest opportunity to know anything about me. In this preface they will most likely expect me to say something of how Animal Farm originated but first I would like to say something about myself and the experiences by which I arrived at my political position. I was born in India in 1903. My father was an official in the English administration there, and my family was one of those ordinary middle-class families of soldiers, clergymen, government officials, teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc. I was educated at Eton, the most costly and snobbish of the English

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Public Schools. But I had only got in there by means of a scholarship; otherwise my father could not have afforded to send me to a school of this type. Shortly after I left school (I wasn’t quite twenty years old then), I went to Burma and joined the Indian Imperial Police. This was an armed police, a sort of gendarmerie very similar to the Spanish Guardia Civil or the Garde Mobile in France. I stayed five years in the service. It did not suit me and made me hate imperialism, although at that time nationalist feelings in Burma were not very marked, and relations between the English and the Burmese were not particularly unfriendly. When on leave in England in 1927, I resigned from the service and decided to become a writer: at first without any especial success. In 1928-9 I lived in Paris and wrote short stories and novels that nobody would print (I have since destroyed them all). In the following years I lived mostly from hand to mouth, and went hungry on several occasions. It was only from 1934 onwards that I was able to live on what I earned from my writing. In the meantime I sometimes lived for months on end amongst the poor and half-criminal elements who inhabit the worst parts of the poorer quarters, or take to the streets, begging and stealing. At that time I associated with them through lack of money, but later their way of life interested me very much for its own sake. I spent many months (more systematically this time) studying the conditions of the miners in the north of England. Up to 1930 I did not on the whole look upon myself as a Socialist. In fact I had as yet no clearly defined political views. I became pro-Socialist more out of disgust with the way the poorer section of the industrial work-

ers were oppressed and neglected than out of any theoretical admiration for a planned society. In 1936 I got married. In almost the same week the civil war broke out in Spain. My wife and I both wanted to go to Spain and fight for the Spanish government. We were ready in six months, as soon as I had finished the book I was writing. In Spain I spent almost six months on the Aragon front until, at Huesca, a fascist sniper shot me through the throat. In the early stages of the war foreigners were on the whole unaware of the inner struggles between the various political parties supporting the Government. Through a series of accidents, I joined not the International Brigade like the majority of foreigners, but the POUM militia — i.e. the Spanish Trotskyists. So in the middle of 1937, when the Communists gained control (or partial control) of the Spanish government and began to hunt down the Trotskyists, we both found ourselves amongst the victims. We were very lucky to get out of Spain alive, and not even to have been arrested once. Many of our friends were shot, and others spent a long time in prison or simply disappeared. These man-hunts in Spain went on at the same time as the great purges in the USSR and were a sort of supplement to them. In Spain as well as in Russia the nature of the accusations (namely, conspiracy with the Facists) was the same and as far as Spain was concerned I had every reason to believe that the accusations were false. To experience all this was a valuable object lesson: it taught me how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries.

GEORGE ORWELL

My wife and I both saw innocent people being thrown into prison merely because they were suspected of unorthodoxy. Yet on our return to England we found numerous sensible and well-informed observers believing the most fantastic accounts of conspiracy, treachery and sabotage which the press reported from the Moscow trials. And so I understood, more clearly than ever, the negative influence of the Soviet myth upon the western Socialist movement. And here I must pause to describe my attitude to the Soviet régime. I have never visited Russia and my knowledge of it consists only of what can be learned by reading books and newspapers. Even if I had the power, I would not wish to interfere in Soviet domestic affairs: I would not condemn Stalin and his associates merely for their barbaric and undemocratic methods. It is quite possible that, even with the best intentions, they could not have acted otherwise under the conditions prevailing there. But on the other hand it was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. Since 1930 I had seen little evidence that the USSR was progressing towards anything that one could truly call Socialism. On the contrary, I was struck by clear signs of its transformation into a hierarchical society, in which the rulers have no more reason to give up their power than any other ruling class. Moreover, the workers and intelligentsia in a country like England cannot understand that the USSR of today is altogether different from what it was in 1917. It is partly that they do not want to understand (i.e. they want to believe that, somewhere, a really Socialist country does actually ex-

ist), and partly that, being accustomed to comparative freedom and moderation in public life, totalitarianism is completely incomprehensible to them. Yet one must remember that England is not completely democratic. It is also a capitalist country with great class privileges and (even now, after a war that has tended to equalise everybody) with great differences in wealth. But nevertheless it is a country in which people have lived together for several hundred years without major conflict, in which the laws are relatively just and official news and statistics can almost invariably be believed, and, last but not least, in which to hold and to voice minority views does not involve any mortal danger. In such an atmo sphere the man in the street has no real understanding of things like concentration camps, mass deportations, arrests without trial, press censorship, etc. Everything he reads about a country like the USSR is automatically translated into English terms, and he quite innocently accepts the lies of totalitarian propaganda. Up to 1939 and even later, the majority of English people were incapable of assessing the true nature of the Nazi regime in Germany, and now, with the Soviet regime, they are still to a large extent under the same sort of illusion. This has caused great harm to the Socialist movement in England, and had serious consequences for English foreign policy. Indeed, in my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction

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of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the Socialist movement. On my return from Spain I thought of exposing the soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages. However, the actual details of the story did not come to me for some time until one day (I was then living in a small village) I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat. I proceeded to analyse Marx’s theory from the animals’ point of view. To them it was clear that the concept of a class struggle between humans was pure illusion, since whenever it was necessary to exploit animals, all humans united against them: the true struggle is between animals and humans. From this point of departure, it was not difficult to elaborate the story. I did not write it out till 1930. I was always engaged on other work which gave me no time; and in the end I included some events, for example the Teheran Conference, which were taking place while I was writing. Thus the main outlines of the story were in my mind over a period of six years before it was actually written. I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure. But I should like to emphasise two points: first, that although the

various episodes are taken from the actual history of the Russian Revolution, they are dealt with schematically and their chronological order is changed; this was necessary for the symmetry of the story. The second point has been missed by most critics, possibly because I did not emphasise it sufficiently. A number of readers may finish the book with the impression that it ends in the complete reconciliation of the pigs and the humans. That was not my intention; on the contrary I meant it to end on a loud note of discord, for I wrote it immediately after the Teheran Conference which everybody thought had established the best possible relations between the USSR and the West. I personally did not believe that such good relations would last long; and, as events have shown, I wasn’t far wrong. I don’t know what more I need add. If anyone is interested in personal details, I should add that I am a widower with a son almost three years old, that by profession I am a writer, and that since the beginning of the war I have worked mainly as a journalist. The periodical to which I contribute most regularly is Tribune, a sociopolitical weekly which represents, generally speaking, the left wing of the Labour Party. The following of my books might most interest the ordinary reader (should any reader of this translation find copies of them): Burmese Days (a story about Burma), Homage to Catalonia (arising from my experiences in the Spanish Civil War), and Critical Essays (essays mainly about contemporary popular English literature and instructive more from the sociological than from the literary point of view).

HARUN MAYE

ANIMALS AS METAPHORS In the ancient world, Achilles could be a lion because humans were not yet categorically separated from animals. Despite an established distinction between animal instincts and human reason, ancient philosophers assumed only a gradual transition from animal and human. The gap between humans and other living creatures is measured differently, but whether this is seen as a descent from humans to beasts or a rise from beasts to humans, the decisive thing is that humans and animals are ranged on the same scale. Because they share the same nature, human relationships can also be illustrated in terms of animals. Allegories and fables about animals and people have as it were common philosophical and physiological roots. The dualism between human and animals introduced by Christianity and Cartesianism at its most radical makes the animal “a sort of concept, i.e. an imaginary being” which is everything a human is not, and vice versa. Interestingly, this did not result in the disappearance of the symbolic function – quite the reverse. When the animal becomes a creature of fable, a concept, it is particularly suitable to symbolise MARGARET PLUMMER as CLOVER STEFAN ASTAKHOV as BOXER

different world views and forms of society. In mediaeval metaphysics, animals and all other natural things are differentiated according to their earthly appearances and an underlying meaning. Christian zoology does not seek to classify and explain the lives of animals, but to interpret and understand. The hidden significance of animals only emerges once we recognise their place in divine creation and what virtues or vices they symbolise. Deciphering this duality of superficial appearance and hidden meaning requires an allegorical interpretation, a hermeneutical approach. This allegorical interpretation was also appropriate for reading secular texts in which animals appear, since the literary and political language of animals often had a symbolic sense. Animals were – and still are – symbols of virtues and vices, right and wrong, cleverness and folly. Many books of flora and fauna in late antiquity and the mediaeval period are constructed on these lines. Starting from the assumption that the allegorical meaning of flora and fauna indicates the hidden presence of God in creation, each entry

HARUN MAYE

in such a book of natural history is divided into two parts. The description of the natural appearance of a living entity is followed by its salvific interpretation. However, the characters in the fables and animal poetry have little in common with the Christian typological significance of the animals in the bestiaries, although they are also in part allegorical animals. “Animal poetry” as defined by Julius Zeuch, in a sense which has been repeatedly modified and expanded. “is a form of poetry which makes the animal the actor”. A distinction is frequently made between the classic fable and modern animal poetry, where the fable is less esteemed as a didactic genre. Older research in particular contrasts modern animal poetry with fables where the animal is degraded to the status of allegory. In fables, the animal merely has the role of embodying human thoughts, relationships and values, like an “actor”. “While they constantly talk about animals, they always mean humans. [...] Illustrations, props, masks, they all deny the reality – animal.” By anthropomorphizing the animals, they are used as a means to an alien (human) end, while in modern literature animals are presented “in their own right” and “in the context of their own life”. This distinction between fable and animal poetry, between allegorical and allegedly real animals repeats the difference in literary history between classical literature which seeks to entertain and instruct and modern literature which has freed itself from social, moral and poetological strictures and serves its own aesthetic purpose.

In contrast to such a simple contrast of genres or literary epochs, which is historically and systemically dubious, Jacob Grimm pointed to the blending of animal and human as one of the key features of fables. The animals in the fable do not simply symbolise human behaviour, they also remain animals, with the literal sense apparent even in the most blatant allegories, and with it all the zoological observations, even if these are merely encyclopaedic and literary commonplaces. This blending and transition between human and animal in fables contrasts with the paradigm of purification and separation which distinguishes the great narrative of the break between pre-modern and modern. This narrative of the modern has now itself become old-fashioned, but it is still extremely effective. It is even still at work in Derrida’s various comments on the animal, where he contrasts the classic animal fable and the modern animal poetry of Hoffmann, Kafka or Valéry and demands that we should avoid fables. “Fables, as we know, are an anthropomorphic gentling, a moral subjugation, a domestication. They are still a discussion of humans by humans, even about the animality of humans, but for humans and in humans.” It is true that fables are didactic and schematic in exactly the sense that Christian Fürchtegott Gellert describes their function in Die Biene und die Henne (“The Bee and the Hen”): “But how can you ask? You can see what use they are. To show those with little understanding the truth through an image.” Conversely, the literary treatment or even misappropriation of the didactic and “schematically prescribed

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literary form” of the fable is apparent before Kafka’s animal poetry, going back to the fables of the 18th century. The fables in the Enlightenment are creatures and illustrations at the same time, literary constructs which also enter into literature and affect it. “For literary animals in particular, this explains and describes how even in the semiotic animals – animal allegories, animal metaphors, animal metonymies – the animals of the world

have their effect.” Literature is not concerned to anthropomorphize animals or describe humans as animals, but to make us aware of such attributions and the knowledge of their contingency and invertibility. Seen in this light, animal literature is always associated with a self-reflexive moment which can lead to “anthropological uncertainty” and recognises that the blend of human and animal is more than just a concept.

M A X HOR K H E I M E R A N D T H E OD OR W. A D OR N O

EVERY ANIMAL RECALLS TO THEM AN IMMENSE MISFORTUNE The world of animals is without concepts. There is no word to hold fast the identical in the flux of phenomena, the same genus in the succession of speci mens, the same thing in changing situations. Although the possibility of recognition is not absent, identification is restricted to vital patterns. There is nothing in the flux that could be defined as lasting, and yet everything remains one and the same, because there is no fixed knowledge of the past and no clear prospect into the future. The animal responds to its name and has no self, it is enclosed in itself yet exposed, one compulsion is followed by another, no idea extends beyond it. Its loss of solace is not balanced by a reduction in fear, its lack of awareness of happiness by the absence of mourning and pain. For happiness to become substantial, for life to be endowed with death, identifying remembrance is needed, assuaging knowledge, the religious or philosophical idea, in short, the concept. There are happy animals, but how short-lived is that happiness! The animal’s experience of duration,

uninterrupted by liberating thought, is dreary and depressive. To escape the gnawing emptiness of existence some resistance is needed, and its backbone is language. Even the strongest animal is infinitely feeble. Schopenhauer’s doctrine according to which the pendulum of life oscillates between pain and boredom, between brief moments of sated impulse and endless craving, is true of the animal, which cannot interrupt the fatal cycle with cognition. In the animal’s soul the individual feelings and needs of human beings are vestigially present, without the stability which only organising reason confers. The best days flit past in a bustling medley like a dream, which the animal can hardly distinguish from waking in any case. It is without the clear division between play and seriousness, the happy awakening from nightmare to reality. In popular fairy tales the metamorphosis of humans into animals is a recurring punishment. To be imprisoned in an animal body is regarded as damnation. To children and peo-

EV ERY A N IM A L R ECA LL S TO T HEM A N IM M ENSE M ISFORT U N E

ples, the idea of such transformations is immediately comprehensible and familiar. Believers in the transmigration of souls in the earliest cultures saw the animal form as punishment and torment. The mute wildness in the animal’s gaze bears witness to the horror which is feared by humans in such metamorphoses. Every animal recalls to them an immense misfortune which took place in primeval times. Fairy

tales express this dim human intuition. But whereas the prince in the fairy tale retained his reason so that, when the time came, he could tell of his woe and the fairy could release him, the animal’s lack of reason holds it eternally captive in its form, unless man, who is one with it through his past, can find the redeeming formula and through it soften the stony heart of infinity at the end of time.

Next pages: ENSEMBLE ANIMAL FARM

GEORGE ORWELL

CRITICISM OF THE SOVIET REGIME What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal [sic – and throughout as typescript] writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941, but it had operated, to a greater extent than is sometimes realised, for ten years earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on any one who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish antiRussian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and ‘played into the hands of’ this or that reactionary interest. This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the

CRITICISM OF THE SOVIET REGIME

international situation, and the urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalisation. The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had developed a nationalistic loyalty towards the USSR, and in their hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on the wisdom of Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.

IMPRINT ALEXANDER R ASK ATOV

ANIMAL FARM SEASON 2023/24 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 28.2.2024 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, MAXIMILIAN MOLZER Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept: MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) All performance photos MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU ARTICLE ORIGINATION: Timeline, taken from the Animal Farm premiere program of Dutch National Opera, March 2023 / Max Horkheimer: The Skyscraper (1934), translated by Christian Koeder, 2020 / George Orwell: Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, from George Orwell, Animal Farm. 1989 / Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer: Every Animal recalls to them an immense Misfortune, from Dialectic of Enlightment, Translated by Edmund Jephcott, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, 2002 / George Orwell: Criticism of the Soviet Regime, from George Orwell, Animal Farm. The Freedom of the Press, 1989. The rest of the articles are taken from the Animal Farm premiere program of Wiener Staatsoper. English translation: Andrew Smith. Editing: Laura Gildenstern. COVER IMAGE Max Siedentopf, Donald?, 2020 Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable are requested to make contact regarding retrospect compensation.

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