by Lori Straus
Hitler and his friends in a cement bunker. The ending? He and his 24-hour-long-married wife kill themselves. So why would someone write an opera about this kind of depressing topic? Andrew Ager has his reasons, and they’re not as insane as you might think. Here’s our conversation:
Lori: What made you decide to choose Hitler’s last 10 days as the topic of an opera?
Andrew: I am a baby-boomer. In the late 60s and the early 70s there were very many veterans of World War II around, in many cases our fathers. There were also very many other adults who had lived through WWII, in many cases our mothers, grandparents and who knows who else. So our childhoods were very much influenced by the then not so distant memory of WWII.
Lori: Okay.
Andrew: That's one side of it. The other side of that time is that there were many people who came to North America after WWII to start a new life. When I was a student in public and high school, quite a few of my teachers and parents of friends in the school were refugees and immigrants who had fled Europe or left it willingly after the war because of the destruction and the lack of prospects that remained for them there. As a child, I didn't understand the details of these events. I knew only that they were people from a different world than mine - the Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, suburban Ottawa culture.
Lori: I see. So your environment was already very much affected by the war.
Andrew: These Europeans lived on our street, were our neighbours, in fact. Our street was a sort of mix of these people - Anglo-Saxon, Latvian, German, Russian, and Polish. All of whom had come to North America following the war and because of the war. So what I guess I'm getting to here is that, as a child, all of this blended together in my mind as a sort of fascination with the mystery of how all of this had come to pass.
Lori: So how did your parents fit in to all of this?
Andrew: My father was a veteran of WWII and my grandfather a veteran of WWI and also served in WWII as a guard in the POW camp near Toronto. Our house was filled with the unseen presence of WWII.
Lori: And can you describe your neighbours more?
Andrew: Our neighbours across the street were a German-Dutch family. They had settled in Canada in the 1950s, and we were very close friends with them. And so at that time, I also became drawn into the middle-European cultural world through their family and through the people next door to us who were Latvian and then the Polish people that we knew as well.
Lori: So, how did this all affect you?
Andrew: I suppose further reading into how all this had come to pass led me to WWII and its causes. It eventually led to an interest in the end of the war and the just post-war developments in Europe. How did the world fall apart? And then, what was the outcome of that? The central figure in all of this is the figure of Hitler. And at the time that I'm talking about, the late 60s and the 70s, there was much satirical representation of Nazi Germany in the popular media such as TV shows like Hogan's Heroes, and certainly many comedians portrayed or performed bitter and harsh parodies of the him and of Nazi Germany and so on.
Lori: And that has all stuck with you.
Andrew: Later in life I began to think about that time again and about its influences on the intellectual development of children, such as myself, in that era and culture. I thought I would make a representation of the end of the war years in some form or another - in a certain sense a kind of artistic catharsis.
Lori: I see. Now, I understand that part of your inspiration also comes from the media?
Andrew: When I saw the movie Downfall a few years ago, I thought right away that this theme...well, I won't say deserves...rather, demands a treatment on stage as an opera, albeit an unusual one.
Lori: Did you then write it in English or German?
Andrew: My German is scholastic and not idiomatic, because I'm not a native speaker. I wrote a structure for the opera and a libretto in English and then had it translated by Frank Eisenhuth in Waterloo.
Lori: Okay.
Andrew: So I wrote this opera as a kind of revisititation of a subject that was very much present in the childhood culture of my generation.
Lori: That's interesting, because you're referring to all the comedy and the satire that came out of your youth on that kind of topic, and yet you're choosing the days before he commits suicide. Is the opera satirical?
Andrew: Not in the slightest.
Lori: I didn't think so.
Andrew: I would say it is a realistic representation in operatic form of the events in Hitler’s bunker from April 20th until April 30th. If someone had written this as a kind of film script, you might say, "Well, this is very cinematic, this is almost unrealistic. A sick and decayed psychopathic dictator and his girlfriend living in a cement bunker with a group of very frightened colleagues and employees, spending the last ten days of his life basically as an idiot, eating chocolate cake and giving orders to armies that no longer exist, all the while in this terrible environment that has no air and destroyed plumbing. Morever, they were being rattled by Russian artillery. On the day before he kills himself, he and his girlfriend marry, and then the next day, they take their own lives."
Lori: That’s definitely not satirical.
Andrew: It almost would seem like a Greek tragedy. The death of a tyrant at his own hand. Except that the tragic reality is that this person really existed and caused untold destruction and misery in the world.
Lori: Mhm.
Andrew: However, many operas have been based on true historic figures who were either tragic or malevolent. So this is, I guess, another example of that.
Lori: Okay. So obviously, you have a musical background; otherwise you couldn't have pulled this off. Can you describe your background to me a bit more?
Andrew: Sure. I have been composing since I was about 16 or 17.
Lori: Wow.
Andrew: Well, it's a bit of time. But one never stops learning, of course. So I have to date written three other operas, all of which have been performed. And I guess a handful of symphonies. I had a performance of my Symphony #2 just the other night here in Toronto. And it was done in Ottawa the week before.
Lori: Did you have any formal education in composing?
Andrew: I had very good theory and piano teachers as a child. In regards to composing one doesn't like to use the term self-taught, because no one is really self-taught. However, I would say that I've gone my own way as a composer, and so far it's worked relatively well, without immense blazing success but without complete obscurity. Sort of down the middle, I guess...
Lori: I see. That you've been able to do it this long is actually quite remarkable.
Andrew: I've managed I think because I've sort of stayed out of the main paths. I've ended up just doing my own thing, and that's all I really think about. And so far it's not been disastrously unsuccessful. (Laughs.) That's as optimistically as I can express is.
Lori: So, then what has influenced your compositions?
Andrew: I'm afraid that in the context of the modern, avante gardish, contemporary classical, or contemporary music world, I'm very much an outsider. My music is strictly influenced by the classical tradition.
Lori: Anyone in particular?
Andrew: No. But the same techniques, the same structural forms, the same influences in regards to technique are the ones that I have followed.
Lori: Okay. So what aspects of technique would those be?
Andrew: For the most part, form and counterpoint . As an organist I play a lot of contrapuntal music. I made a pretty deep study of counterpoint for years and continue to do so. I like to think that I follow in that classical tradition, although with my own language.
Lori: Interesting. To me, language is, you know, French, German, English. And I would certainly acknowledge that music is a language of its own. But then, what do you mean in terms of your personal language in music.
Andrew: I would sum that up by referring to your earlier point in that you're thinking of language in terms of spoken languages. Right away, within a certain language, say, English, it is generally accepted that well-known authors have their ´´fingerprints`` . Hemingway doesn't read like Dickens, who doesn't read like Virginia Woolf, etc. etc.
Lori: I see.
Andrew: You right away realize that they have their own sub-language or their own usage of a particular language. It's all in English, but they have their own form of English . Analogiously, I would say that my music would sound both familiar and new. Let me put it that way...for better or worse.
Lori: Okay.
Andrew: The materials of music, pitch and rhythm, are immediately recognizable to anyone who knows classical music. However, the distinctive manner in which it is used by a composer is always contemporary to him or her . So it's at once old and new.
Lori: Now, you've been composing for almost forty years now. That's quite a long time. What helps you stick to it?
Andrew: If I didn't do it, then I would go crazy.
Lori: So, you just have a strong need that you have to get this out.
Andrew: Well, when I look back on it I think I have done this because I really had to. I never thought in terms of any career or work or anything of that sort whatsoever. It never even occurred to me. I dropped out of high school at 16 so that I could stay home and write music and read my books. I never gave the slightest thought to the future. I just did what I wanted.
Lori: Wow. So, was it sort of a rebellious move as a teenager? Or was it more, you just knew that's what you had to do?
Andrew: I would say it was a form of rebellion, but it wasn't rebellion against anything in the home, because our home was open to such things. Our house was very much a place where music and literature were present, without it being a kind of stuffy, pretentious presence. It was what we were interested in.
Lori: And what about your parents?
Andrew: My parents were supportive of my work at all times. At 16 I simply said to myself, well, I just don't want to go to school anymore and waste my days there. It's not a waste for everybody, it should be said. The right to education came only after long and difficult political struggles. However, the social aspect of school was no longer relevant for me and I just decided to go my own way thereafter. And so with plenty of bumps and plenty of reversals, both past and present, and I certainly expect future, that's more or less what I've done.
Lori: And now Führerbunker is your fourth opera. How is it different from the others?
Andrew: Well, the first one is an operatic setting of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. So it is pure drama, science fiction, horror, call it what you will. It was performed here in Toronto a few years ago. It received very good reviews. What I'm trying to do now is get it done elsewhere. That is not something that can happen methodically. It happens when it happens - if it happens. There are some groups in Europe that are interested in talking about it - that's as far as it's gone at this point. It's impossible to know how any of that works.
Lori: Right.
Andrew: The second opera is called The Wings of the Dove. It's based on the last part of the Henry James novel, the climax of the tragic events of that tale. It was done in Toronto a few years ago as well.
Lori: How did it do?
Andrew: It also sold out and got very good reviews. I'm trying to get it done elsewhere, so it's the same thing over again.
Lori: That’s wonderful. And the third opera?
Andrew: The third opera is quite different. It's Casanova and it's a short opera buffa. It's a completely ludicrous, stupid comedy that we did last year here in Toronto. It was also done in Ottawa.
Lori: Do you have any future plans for that one at all?
Andrew: A friend of mine in Venice is trying to get it performed there at the Fenice and that's looking not hopeless, but we'll see, we'll see.
Lori: A monster, a terminally ill heiress, a lover, and now Hitler. How did your fourth opera unfold?
Andrew: Führerbunker came to my mind when I was in Sulmona two years ago working for the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy. It occurred to me one day that this would be a project that I would like to do. After I was at this academy, I went to visit my friend in Venice for two weeks in August and it was so horribly hot and there were so many dreadful tourists that I stayed in her house during the day in my room with the shutters closed, writing, and went out only at night, when it was much nicer.
Lori: How much were you able to accomplish?
Andrew: I got almost the entire libretto and structure of the opera written during those two weeks because it was a sort of forced confinement.
Lori: Wow.
Andrew: When I got back to Canada after that, I had other things to do so I let it percolate for a while and then I started writing it about a year ago, I guess.
Lori: Okay. So how much work is involved in composing an opera?
Andrew: Let me take Führerbunker as an example. First of all, the structure: the events that are going to be depicted in the opera are already there. In fact one has to make a selection thereof, because you can´t represent everything. One follows certain traditions or guidelines. For example, most dramas have a three-part structure, and this one is no different. Then one might set about deciding what the cast will be, because you can´t represent everybody in the original story or event. I also decided not to invent any subplots or any fictional characters, partly because they weren't needed and partly because I think it would be a cheapening of the importance and gravity of the memory of many people. The whole world was affected by this war and its proponents. There was no reason to add anything to it.
Lori: That makes sense. What happens next?
Andrew: Then I start writing a libretto. I decided to write it myself partly because it's cheaper than paying a librettist. Also because many writers don't realize that an opera libretto is often almost telegraphic in its conciseness. You can't say a whole lot in words in opera. It's in the music. And in fact, most opera libretti are terrible to read because they are very prosaic.
Lori: I see.
Andrew: I wrote my own libretto. Frank started to translate it for me. Then I started thinking of what sort of music I wanted to write. Did I want it to be overtly dramatic? Or, as I decided, did I want it to represent the atmosphere in the bunker, which was sort of surrealistic, cramped, airless, claustrophobic, and ultimately just very, very depressing. And so I've written an opera which I think will actually depict the kind of airless, claustrophobic, unreal atmosphere of that place.
Lori: Wow.
Andrew: It is not a neo-romantic score - it is going to sound like a bunch of people in a hopeless situation in a concrete hole. (Laughs.) There's no attempt at making any of it heroic or glorious, and I certainly don't want to give the impression that any of that subject deserves to be treated that way.
Lori: That’s very interesting.
Andrew: One of the stage directions I have is that there be no applause at the end, because the last thing I want is for those characters to come out on stage and get an ovation. The performers will understand that. It's a little bit unusual in that way.
Lori: That's true.
Andrew: But you can see my point.
Lori: Definitely. So, have you started working with the performers already?
Andrew: We've been rehearsing now for about a month and a half, proceeding step-by-step as those things do. The production in Kitchener is a staged production at The Registry Theatre. I'm playing the piano for the production, and we have a couple of costumes that we're getting from Malabar. But for the most part, we're keeping it very minimalistic. It's not that complicated a stage production, because it all happens in two spots: you're either in the bunker or you're upstairs in the garden next to the bunker. There's barely any actual stage action except towards the end. The opera lasts not quite one hour and it's in one act. So it's very concise.
Lori: Okay. So, then, how do the actors find this? My point of reference is a one-man show about Marc Lépine, who committed the Montreal Massacre. Adam Kelly Morton, the playwright, also acted in the show. He said that he always had to do a Q&A after the show, because the role affected him so strongly. It was his way of coming out of that role. How are the actors for Führerbunker doing with this right now?
Andrew: That's very interesting. I didn't know about this. It brings to mind an interview I read with the actor Bruno Ganz, who portrayed Hitler in Downfall.
Lori: Okay.
Andrew: In the interview he said that they worked for a year on the film. He had to be made up and put on a costume and was therefore deeply involved in representing Hitler for an extended period of time as accurately as possible. He said that during that time he developed a tremendous revulsion and hatred for that person.
Lori: Wow.
Andrew: It took him quite some time afterwards to feel free of the effects of working on it. However, part of the reality of working with people mostly under thirty in the present day is that they don't have the same historical connection to the war that my generation has.
Lori: That’s true.
Andrew: Many of them have grandparents who were children or teenagers in WWII, but the direct connection through parents is fairly rare. What I have done in preparing for these rehearsals is give these people information and articles about who it is that they're representing.
Lori: Okay.
Andrew: I don't think any of them are personally affected so far by this, because they have a kind of professional detachment in regards to taking these roles. That being said,the nature of the opera and the subject have certainly been topics of discussion.
Lori: What sorts of things come up?
Andrew: It's been interesting in that some of the singers have mentioned things like, 'My great grandmother was in Poland,' or that sort of connection . It's brought to light memories and things they know about their own families or friends that they hadn't talked much about before. mostly because the subject just doesn't come up that much among younger people.
Lori: Interesting. So where are the singers from?
Andrew: They are opera singers and soloists from Toronto I've known for years and with whom I've worked before. They're not from any one particular company.
Lori: And you’re doing another one (production) in May in Toronto?
Andrew: Yes. That's being put on by the Centre for Opera Studies International. The singers for that production will all be from that group. The February and May productions will be quite different.
Lori: Fantastic. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Andrew.
Andrew: You’re most welcome.
The world premier of Führerbunker takes place at The Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick St., Kitchener on February 11 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 regular, $20 for students/seniors and are available at the door.