Baal

Nature is expressed in “Mainacht” in two ways: as an external, physical tangible object and as an internally experienced, symbolic state. In the setting of the scene, nature initially appears as a sheltering space: The leafy canopy of the forest protects Baal and Sophie from the rain, which is just letting up as the scene begins. Bedded down on dry roots, Baal and Sophie are isolated from the world around them. This lovers’ lair is reminiscent of Wagner’s “Garden with Tall Trees” in Tristan and Isolde, an almost metaphysical locus amoenus, detached from time and place.  
At the same time, the wilderness of the location triggers morbid fantasies in Baal. The act of love tears one’s clothes from the body like “a whirlpool” and “buries one naked under the corpses of leaves”. In this way, the idyllic May night is transformed into an imaginary love grave—a union of death and passion.

The “Song of the Man in the Woods” can be understood as a parable of human existence. It juxtaposes the human ability to freely move with the gnarled immobility of trees. The man speaking to the tree in the song does not seem happy with his freedom. He envies the tree for its stability, its groundedness, its deep-reaching roots, and the “great calm above its silent treetops”, a subtle nod to Goethe’s Above the Mountaintops.
In the opera, this parable serves a special dramaturgical function. It is not isolated in itself, but refers to the finale—to Baal’s lonely death in the forest. The dark tune is also linked to a later song sung by Baal, which bears the prophetic title “Death in the Forest” and is likewise an anticipation of his fate. Here, the images of a beggar are intensified: “And a man died in the never-ending forest, with darkness storming over him. Died like an animal caught in the tangle of roots. Stared up at the treetops where, high above the forest, storms had been rushing for days.” Both songs can be seen as prophecies that encode the cosmos of nature with (later legitimized) forebodings of death.

The beggar’s song is closely interwoven with the conversation in the tavern. Over and over, comments, remarks, and questions from the guests interrupt him and the song, leaving the various idioms of the song juxtaposed but never connected.
Taken out of context, the song, sung by a bass, is an expressive performance with ominous undertones. Dark string cantilenas underpin the vocals, reinforcing its sinister character. The broad melodic arcs of the orchestra and vocals contribute to the overall sense of melancholy and song’s broad expressive character. Equally narrative and expressive, the beggar’s melodic gesture is based on spoken language. As a result, it is easy to follow the lyrics, something also facilitated by the slow tempo. The atmosphere of the song arises from four basic elements. The first is that of the fairy-tale; the very first line begins with “Once upon a time”. The second uses a tone marked by existential angst, the words and music reinforcing each other. For example, when the man throws himself on the ground, clutching the roots of the tree in tears, the events in the orchestra likewise escalate. But there are also reserved, tender moments that form a third building block; this is clearest when the beggar speaks of peace in the treetops. An empty but far-spanning fifth of E and B forms a soft background for the strings, upon which the singer and two horns linger. On the two syllables of the word “Ruhe”, the latter ensure that the fifth becomes a minor, then a major triad, which then immediately disappears.
Another design element comes into play when the beggar sings about the wind blowing through the treetops. The tree begins to tremble, reflected in the wildly overlapping glissandi of the strings. Brittle timbres, bolstered by the sul ponticello of the strings, imbue the sequence with surprising sensuality. Such “naturalisms” create an a nearly romantic interface between internal experience and external event that is almost characteristic for Baal.

The second act hints several times at Baal’s death, preparing us dramaturgically. In the end, this keeps the death scene from coming as a surprise. After Baal stabs his friend Ekart in an act of rage, he flees to the dance hall, where he is chased out after trying to force a girl to dance. Baal now seems unable to find a home. He eventually ends up in a hut, playing cards with four lumberjacks, who have nothing but scorn for the weakened Baal. They view him as scum, ridiculing and laughing at him, despite knowing he is nearly face to face with death. Instead of helping him in his final hour, they exit the hut, leaving Baal in solitude. With his little remaining strength, he drags himself out of the cabin to die, free and alone in the forest.

Until his very last breath, Baal is drawn to nature, to the trees. Even his last words—”trunks, wind, foliage, … stars …”—reveal how strongly his perception is focussed on that which is fundamental. And while he dies abandoned and alone in the wilderness, it need not be considered a bad death: Baal’s enduring longing to become one with nature is finally fulfilled. It also symbolizes the final stage of separation from the world, from culture, and from societal constraints. Baal finds his last resting place “in the lowest […] branches of the tree”—just as he once sang in his song “Death in the Forest”.

Death and becoming one with nature thus converge in the final scene. The mythical power of the forest is invoked once again in the powerful aftermath of Baal’s final words. It is part of a musical texture that, according to Cerha, embodies nature—“interweavings” and “fields of dense tones”—a fabric that develops organically from Baal’s last words. A sense of suction is created that threatens to swallow Baal’s fragmentary exclamations whole. The bursts of energy then increase to the point of excess: Two large drums, three timpani, and shortly afterwards a tam-tam begin to play softly over Baal’s last words—a symbolic reference to the mighty roar of the conclusion. A dense urgency is particularly evident in the string section, which gradually builds up an immense cluster over almost six octaves. The stringent progression from low to high is reminiscent of Cerha’s early works, in particular the 55-part string piece Spiegel II. Sharp, repeated accents on the notes act as gigantic bursts of power that continuously multiply. The mighty string-laden chord fluctuates even as it emerges: While the voices sustain some of the tones, others change. Once again, the compositional viewpoint turns towards the 1960s as the differentiated movements within the sound complex somehow retain great energy. The development of power within the confined space is founded on an extreme layering of sound material. Particularly striking are the variations of an ascending, motivic figure above the string chord, increasingly unravelling. This is created through instruments of a bright timbre, in the high winds, as well as in the glockenspiel and vibraphone—as if Cerha were trying to choreograph Baal’s stargazing, the last perception of a dying man who finds himself otherwise in utter darkness.

With Baal’s death, the intertwining of the individual voices gradually dissolves. In the morendo, the roaring percussion is the first to fade away, and finally the wind instruments also fall silent. In the end, only the strings remain, levelling off on a final axis, on an E. This process of shrinking the tonal space is again reminiscent of Cerha’s soundscape compositions of the 1960s: Both the Spiegel cycle and Fasce end in a single note after a long period of reduction—a gesture that acts as a farewell to the previous complexity, and reflects Baal’s turning towards the elemental.