Cantio
A one-hour contemporary opera with composer Vykintas Baltakas, commissioned by the Munich Biennale of 2004.
Cantio is not only an opera, it is also a question: Why does anyone sing at all? To whom do they sing? And why?
From Latin 'cantus' ( ‘melody, song, incantation’), Cantio is a song performed to delay the departure of the gods.
Taking the form of a farewell hymn, the song is woven out of various notions drawn ancient Greek literature and fragments of Greek poetry. It is sung by a group of cicadas who were, according to Plato, the first beings to sing.
From Latin 'cantus' ( ‘melody, song, incantation’), Cantio is a song performed to delay the departure of the gods.
Taking the form of a farewell hymn, the song is woven out of various notions drawn ancient Greek literature and fragments of Greek poetry. It is sung by a group of cicadas who were, according to Plato, the first beings to sing.
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The Cicada Myth
“A lover of music like yourself ought surely to have heard the story of the cicadas, who are said to have been human beings in an age before the Muses. And when the Muses came and song appeared they were ravished with delight; and singing always, never thought of eating and drinking, until at last in their forgetfulness they died. And now they live again in the cicadas; and this is the return which the Muses make to them - they neither hunger, nor thirst, but from the hour of their birth are always singing, and never eating or drinking; and when they die they go and inform the Muses in heaven who honors them on earth." Plato, The Phaedrus |
The “Farewell” Hymn
"Apopemptic hymns, as the name shows, are the opposite of hymns of invocation; the type is very rare, found only in the poets. They are performed at departures, imagined or real, of gods […] Hymns of this kind have as their basic material the land or cities which the god is leaving behind, and similarly the city or land to which he is going, descriptions of places and suchlike. The text must run pleasantly along, since one may dwell longer on the topics: in hymns of invocation one spends less time on them, since we want the gods to join us as quickly as possible; but in Apopemptic hymns we want them to take as long as possible over their departure." Menander, Greek orator and poet. |
CICADAS – THE FIRST SINGERS
The cicada story (from Plato’s Phaedrus) explains the origins of song as well as very desire to sing. The first singers were humans who were so enchanted with the gift of song, presented to them by the Muses, that they forgot to eat or drink, and slowly withered away. But the gods honored these first faithful singers by turning them into cicadas, which never need to eat or drink, but sing continually and live only off the morning dew.
Cicadas sing endlessly, stopping for nothing… but to whom? And what do they sing about? Cantio imagines that the cicadas are singing to the very gods that first enabled them to sing. They are now singing to keep the gods listening, and thus present in the city, for as long as they can.
The lead voice is a cicada, once human, who speaks only in ancient Greek. Over the centuries, her voice has grown frail. She is singing:
...TO THE GODS
The blessed gods have built a ship, and are dragging it down to the sea. It is morning, they are waiting to leave…but the city will crumble without them. To bid them farewell, she sings…
...A HYMN
In ancient times, the comings and goings of gods was marked by a hymn, sung by the city’s lead poet. The ‘apopemptic hymn’, or farewell oration, was performed at the departures of the gods, “whether imagined or real”. The hymn should entertain the gods with tales of the places and peoples they might encounter on their voyage. Though the hymn had to be pleasing and light, the singer could, by drawing it out a while, express a reluctance to let the gods depart.
FOREVER.
The cicadas, with their ability to sing without stopping, hope to be able to delay the gods indefinitely. In their hands, the form of the traditional farewell hymn is transformed; it becomes endless.
Their hymn takes the following tripartite (yet infinite) form:
Introduction
A voice emerges gradually, from cicada sounds, and fragments of the song slowly emerge and begin to make sense.
Part I: ‘Here’ / Our City
The singing voice praises her own beloved city, hoping to persuade the gods to stay.
Part II: ‘There’ (the land opposite)
The voice warns of oddities and dangers nearby, where all the customs are the contrary of here.
But the gods are not dissuaded. So she must spin an even longer tale...
Part III: 'The Outer Edge of the World'
The voice's tale grows wilder, as she repeats rumors she has heard of the lands beyond the mountains, terrible tales of the end of the world, where night reigns for half the year and where men are blind or sleeping.
A rumor returns, of men who dream...
of a cicada who sings...a song…to the departing gods…
and so the song circles back on itself, caught in time and space forever. (As if it never ending, as if it might cause the gods to tarry and listen, for as long as the song goes on. A trap!
In the concert hall, however, the song fades back into cicada sounds, and becomes unintelligible again.
But it never ends. As long as it continues, the gods are perhaps still there, still listening…
