You have to dare to do it: name an opera after the main organiser behind the mass deportations and extermination camps of Jews in World War II and then not perform him as a character. Composer Alejandra Castro Espejo and librettist Bo Tarenskeen did it: their opera Eichmann, a production of the Diamond factory, will premiere at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ on Wednesday 9 December.
Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped from Argentina by the Israeli secret service in 1960 and sentenced to death after a high-profile trial. He was hanged in 1962. A year later, German-American Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt published her controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem: the banality of evil.
Against the communis opinio in described Eichmann not as an unfeeling monster, but as an insignificant individual: he carried out orders from above without thinking for himself. By so easily eliminating his own free will, he illustrated the 'banality of evil'. Castro Espejo and Tarenskeen took this thought as the starting point for their opera. Four questions to Castro Espejo.
Adolf Eichmann does not appear in the opera himself, whose idea was that and what is the purpose of this?
It was clear to both of us from the beginning that we did not want to represent the character of Eichmann. Nor is the play about World War II: the performance is based on the trial of Eichmann and the ideas Arendt raised about him. Our opera asks questions like: what is self-responsibility and are we really free in our thinking?
Arendt meticulously follows the trial and finds out that Eichmann, who was seen by the world as the personification of evil - a monster and devil - was actually an average office clerk who carried out his orders perfectly. That evil is not just the diabolical, but lies precisely in not thinking about one's own actions. This statement caused a stir, not least among the Jewish community. But on a philosophical and psychological level, it was a breakthrough.
How did you approach this in terms of content and music?
There are seven characters, each in their own way representing different views on free will. Each of them has a monologue. These are spoken, played instrumentally, or sung - or a combination of these. At play in the monologues is the underlying question: do we have free will ? We see an Enlightenment philosopher, a Calvinist, a Golem, a Hippie, a Muslim, a Recidivist and Hannah Arendt.
Finding the cast was an important part and also our starting point: both Bo and I wanted seven performers moving across the stage with no strict distinction between 'singer' or 'musician'. It is exciting to drop the dividing lines between disciplines and look for a way to get to music-making, to speaking or singing. This is music and theatre in its most literal form.
The ensemble consists of two harps, percussionist, violin, cello and guitar/trumpet. The selection of instruments came partly from the choice of the performers, but I took care to ensure that it was an instrumentally balanced ensemble. Both harpists sing, as do the trumpeter and cellist.
There is no plot, so I turned each song into a mood, by setting a musical image that typifies the character. It was important to me that the music would reinforce the group feeling, and give a counter-colour to the monologues. For me it was important from the start that the music connects the performers; there are also moments when actually everyone plays at the same time. That's a strong image.
Alejandra Castro Espejo (c) Robert BenschopHow did you decide who sings and who doesn't?
The choice to have the characters sing or not comes from the content and the text itself. We worked partly in parallel: Bo Tarenskeen wrote the text and I made sketches for the music. That way we tried to keep feeding off each other. But of course, at some point I needed lyrics to make a choice between what would be sung and what would be spoken. This went very organically and the ratio of spoken word to song/music is fairly equal.
Lacking a protagonist, can we identify with anyone?
I think the audience can identify with every monologue. That is the strength of the lyrics: they deal with very tangible things, even though the theme is actually quite abstract. The music reinforces certain statements, but sometimes the song colours a character by emphasising a different angle. The recidivist, for instance, also turns out to have a sensitive side, making his character more complex and rich. The beauty is that you only discover things like this during the editing process.
I wondered whether I should compose at all for such a theme. I decided to do it, but also let go as a composer at certain moments. For instance, there is a guided improvisation, where the musicians have to listen carefully to each other to stay together. There are also a few moments where the movements are as important as the sound result. In the end, it has become a performance in which the group comes across as very close, despite the lack of psychological interaction. I find that fascinating.
Eichmann can also be seen at the Toneelschuur in Haarlem.
Postscript 2018: On September 20, the Eichmann. Musical theatre about free will performed again, in CC Amstel, Amsterdam
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