The Travelling Companion

Yesterday, while reading Hans Christian Andersen's "The Travelling Companion," I started getting some serious operatic "vibes." I don't plan to write another opera (unless I just can't help myself). But considering my lack of ability to make the kinds of connections that make it possible for opera companies to consider staging my work, the amount of effort that goes into writing an opera doesn't make sense unless a performance is something other than a remote possibility.

I have tried, and I have failed. I know that my failure has nothing to do with the quality of my work. Still, it would be nice to see how things actually play out on a stage in an actual theater, instead of the one inside my head, where the acoustics are perfect, the lighting is ideal, the dancing is extraordinary, the voices are resonant, the diction is perfect, and the costumes and sets are limitless.

And if I were to set "The Travelling Companion" properly I would need to have some flying, some serious magical transformation (from black swan to white swan, and then to princess), and some violence (though that could be done musically).

I noticed that Charles Villiers Stanford, as prompted by his friend Hary Plunket Greene in 1911, made an operatic setting of the story with Henry Newbolt providing the libretto.

You can find the score on this page of the IMSLP.

Stanford and Newbolt, being proper Victorians, minimized the Turandot-like nature of the princess (which Puccini made up for in his 1920 opera Turandot). Many of Andersen's tales are as old as time, and his stories could have had many sources. The Turandot story and other stories related to it most certainly have served as good travelling companions through several countries and several centuries. 

The Wikipedia article on Turandot  gives us a glimpse:

The beginnings of Turandot can likely be found in Haft Peykar, a twelfth-century epic by the Persian poet Nizami. One of the stories in Haft Peykar features a Russian princess. In 1722, François Pétis de la Croix published his Les Mille et un jours (The Thousand and One Days), a collection of stories which were purportedly taken from Middle Eastern folklore and mythologies.One of these stories, believed to be inspired by Nizami, features a cold princess named Turandokht. However, it has been speculated that many of de la Croix's 'translated' stories were his own original creations, with no actual basis in Middle Eastern cultures. De la Croix's story was adapted into a play, Turandot, by the Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi in 1762, which was then adapted by Friedrich Schiller into another play in 1801. It was Schiller's version that inspired Puccini to write the opera.

Stanford and Newbolt turn a troll into a wizard, and give the listener some foreshadowing which Andersen avoids. Andersen's stories tend to be linear, keeping the reader attuned to the here-and-now of the protagonist.

You can read about the latest production of Stanford's opera here.