Performed by Orchestra Wellington with the Orpheus Choir of Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
"It will be hellish music. The prelude before the curtain goes up will be very short and sound like pandemonium...the auidence will be introduced to the [thieves'] den at the height of the hurly-burly of the metropolis."
Béla Bartók read the play 'The Miraculous Mandarin' in a magazine and immediately decided to set it to music. In 1918, following the First World War, the Bartóks were living in a small village east of Budapest in a state of extreme hardship with no electricity or running water, little fuel or food, and Béla had contracted the Spanish Flu. Eventually the family gave up and moved into the capital in a state of political upheaval. Nationalists labelled Bartók a traitor to Hungary due to his interest in ethnomusicology and his travels abroad, so he moved to Cologne with the hopes of having 'The Miraculous Mandarin' premiered. It was, but due to its shocking subject matter was immediately banned.
The pantomime-ballet's gruesome story was as challenging to the audiences of Bartók's day as today. Beneath the violence, sexuality and exploitation, and Bartók's sonic recreation of the dehumanised sounds of industrialised cities, is the hope that love and compassion can be found in the darkest times.
The story tells of a young woman who is forced to dance in a window to entice men into a den where three thieves could then fleece them for money. A clarinet solo depicts her three seductive dances. She succeeds, first with an old man, then a young innocent, neither having any money. They're thrown out and finally a strange and clearly wealthy mandarin is drawn in. His otherworldly gaze terrifies her and he chases her and when he catches her, the thieves jump out and rob him. The Mandarin, refusing to relinquish the girl, is finally attacked by the thieves, who stab him, smother him, and finally hang him from a light which falls to the ground. He begins to glow with an eerie green light, and the girl signals to the thieves to release him, and finally he embraces her and is released to die of his wounds.
The premiere in Cologne caused an uproar until the mayor of the city forced the conductor to shut down further performances. It was not performed in Bartók's home country, Hungary, until after his death in 1945.
Recorded by RNZ Concert Michael Fowler Centre, 03 June, 2023
Producer, engineer: David Houston
