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Reinbert de Leeuw: Reconstructie - Synopsis

The scene is Theatre Carré, a former circus. Behind the stage various fragments of a statue of Che Guevarra can be seen. During the performance, seven workmen will erect the eleven meters high statue to its full size. The aim of the opera is to revive the true value of Che Guevara from a pop icon on t-shirts and souvenirs to a Latin American freedom fighter, who leads the resistance against US Imperialism. In the former circus ring a circle is drawn of seven meters in diameter. This circle represents the Western hemisphere. In the center there is a huge bed, representing Latin America. On the geographical position of Cuba a large baroque mirror is placed. The moon shines above the audience. Lianas and giant ferns on either side of the stage represent the Bolivian jungle. To the left and right were table with 13 metal placards each, which were flipped at set points in the performance, to mark the next scene.

Part I

The opening scene presented a girl in blood stained wedding dress is lying on a bed: Cuba. The opera takes place on three levels. The first is that of the workers assembling the statue of Che Guevara. The second is the level of Don Juan and the Commander. The third level brings big-time American businessmen to the stage. A reconstruction is going on at each level.

A is for America

The Overture begins, while the workmen are fastening Che Guevara’s shoe at the base of the to be erected statue.

Overture

The overture is the model of cooperation between five living and several hundred dead or half-dead composers.

The Choir is structured as follows:

CHOIR A, CHOIR B, CHOIR C

1. Dollar – investment – profit – credit
2. Per year – per day – per minute
3. Four thousand – five million – two billion
4. Atonal – abberation – attention – America – apple – apache – Akela – atom – attach – adventure – Alliance – for progress – arms – abc – anal – Alpha ad Omega
5. Gnoepiloquiflex – nylonpepsidralon

Meanwhile twenty beautiful majorettes in tight costumes, coquette boots and bright red shakos on their platinum wigs, march jauntily into the ring, singing a song commemorating the Yuki women’s support of their men when they battled other tribes: ‘When the men of the Yuki tribe in California…’ When the majorettes leave, Erasmus appears. He puts Cuba to her feet, and the libretto mentions that the appearance of this famous humanist in the opera is due to the fact that 1969 celebrates the fifth centennial of his birth, and both Mulisch and Claus had previously been invited to write a dramatic about it. Both declined because Erasmus didn’t make a choice between the Pope and Luther and they feel they are facing another historic moment where choices will have to be made. So they decided to give Erasmus his place in their own work rather than in the Rotterdam celebrations, and they made him Don Juan’s servant, which gives him ample opportunity to practice in making choices. Erasmus recites a monologue, ‘Erasmus, born 500 years ago, in 1469’. He laments his God loving and all too feminine mother, his unworthy father, a priest, and thus explains his vows to abstain from sex himself.

Part of Don Juan’s Monologue Bert Olsson (Don Juan)

Don Juan enters and praises his servant for being so zealous and pure, before lecturing him about money, power and women. Choir A and B sing about the victims of imperialism in South-America, where each minute four people die. At this point the opening lines of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni are quoted in the music. Bolivia appears and sings a brief lament: ‘In Latin America every thousand dollars leaves one dead man behind’. Don Juan sniffs her scent, and explains that he smells a woman!

B is for Bolivia

Don Juan seduces Bolivia in a rather striking love duet:

Your forehead is the plateau of the Andes Bert Olsson (Don Juan), Natascha Emmanuels (Cuba)

When Don Juan exclaims that he shall invest the night in Bolivia, Erasmus sighs that this is by definition a bad idea: ‘Invest, no good will come of that’. Exlaimed in clear speech, this is one the moments in the libretto, where the political agenda of the team is presented in unmistakable words, by actor Henk Molenberg in the role of Erasmus:

‘Investing is suspicious’ Henk Molenberg (Erasmus)

C is for Culture

A sequence of made up television adds is performed, for products as ‘Hair de luxe’, ‘Earoflex’, Quicky-quick-quick’, ‘Raspodent’, ‘Gnoulox’ etcetera. Clyde appears. He is the 56 looking 46 years old director of the Total American Company, and husband of the frigid Cinderella. He is visiting Latin America, the most backward continent, with the people’s best interest at heart. Clarence appears, he makes the same statement as Clyde, although now he speaks of a a sterile wife named Chouchou and a Mommoth Enterprise ready to harvest the Latin American riches. ABC appears, praised by al for having so much feeling for all that lives… and dies. Clyde and Clarence call him a true humanist, with a smile for everyone, for the Negroes, the starving, the illiterate and the dead.

Short fragment C is for Culture

Short fragment intro’s Clyde and Chouchou Siem Vroom (Clyde), Carola Gijsbers van Wijk (Chouchou)

D is for Devotion

ABC states his cause as to seize production of meat in Argentina, coffee in Brazil, sugar in Cuba, Cocoa in the Dominican republic, rice in Ecuador, bananas in Guatemala, cotton in Haiti, oil in Venezuela, and so on. All applaud him. Clyde recalls how his Total American Company 'helps' Latin America by 'developing its riches'.

Clyde recalls how his Total American Company 'helps' Latin America by 'developing its riches' Siem Vroom (Clyde), Paul Brandenburg (Clarence), Jérôme Reehuis (ABC), Hetty Verhoogt (Cinderella), Carola Gijsbers van Wijk (Chouchou), Yoka Berrety (Claudelle)

E is for Eating

Three Bolivians place a table and six chairs on the geographical position of the Sandwich Islands. They put a tin of crackers and a spray can shaped like the Apollo capsule on the table.

‘Their eyes devour my bosom’ Yoka Berrety (Claudelle), Carola Gijsbers van Wijk (Chouchou)

F is for Fantasy

Don Juan polishes his pistol; Erasmus prepares his master’s dress.  Don Juan sings of his reproductive capacities an: ‘My tree grows and blooms when the woman gives birth’. Don Juan’s musical disintegration is most audible in this aria in three styles, those of Diepenbrock, Stravinsky, and Henze, conducted by three conductors. Intriguingly, the mentioned styles are tailored to the two principal themes from Don Giovanni, which remain the principal motives throughout.

G is for God

Clyde said a prayer, Claudelle sang a song and when ABC fulminates that praying isn’t ‘doing’, Clyde writes out a check of $ 250 for the blind in Argentina… They start bidding against each other until Claudelle writes a check of $ 100.000 for a cause she has to be reminded of… What? Mongoloïd children? Alright.... ABC scolds them. He demands 2 billion dollars. Bombs are heard falling. All stifle with fear.

H is for Hate

The voice of Jack Tyrannosaurus Tenorio (voice of Don Juan through a megaphone) announced that his man launched an attack in the district of Quebrada del Churo. This commemorates Che Guevara’s attack there. Jack Tyrannosaurus has topull back his man though, and shouts retreat to the tunes of Star Spangled Banner, Dixie, Columbia, Gem of the Ocean, Yankee Doodle, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the hymn ‘Abide with me’.

I is for illusion

Tuning of instruments. Bolivia enters in a wedding dress. Overture. Bolivia goes to the bed, hypnotized. The scene is designed as the reconstruction of a miniature opera, evoking the style of Mozart although not imitating him. The unorthodox orchestra and the complete absence of typical instruments of a Mozart orchestra prevent that. According to the composers, the brief overture of 40 seconds might be seen as the most successful result of their joint effort. None less than seven versions preceded it before they settled on this one.

Reconstructie I for Illusion ‘Overture’

In the miniature opera, Don Juan and Bolivia exchange data in Italian language about the number of people starving each minute in Latin America and the profit made on them. When they exit the stage, Erasmus laments the fate of Bolivia, who is now being raped by his master and conceiving his child. When he warns his master that men are approaching, it is The Commander, father of Bolivia, who wants to avenge his violated daughter. As he turns to embrace her first, Don Juan stabs him in the back.

J was the Murderer

Don Juan shoots the Commander and proceeds to shoot Bolivia as well. He is prevented in doing so when the winch with which the workman are hoisting the sections of the statue breaks loose. Don Juan flees.

Don Juan kills the Commander Bert Olsson (Don Juan), Pieter van den Berg (Commander)

K is for Keen

Bolivia sings an aria on a poem by César Vallejo:

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As in F is for Fantasy, tonal and non-tonal motives occur together. The composing team generally discovered that the words tonal and atonal were merely formal expressions that went together naturally. There are passages of strict tonal music in Reconstructie, and passages with purely tonal music.

L is for Lifeless

Bill looks at the Commander’s body and takes out a walkie-talkie. The electronic treatment of the sound reflects the way in which the opera is made: mutual penetration of ideas– distortion into fragments of the score by the cooperation in realizing these ideas.

Jack Tyrannosaurus answers his calls and summons him to search the body.

M is for Moonlight

Everything is bathed in pink, syrupy moonlight. Bill, Claudelle, ABC, Chouchou, Cinderella and Cyde all attest to their various ideas of love and making love, while the choirs repeat their chant about the number of people dying in Latin America per minute. A cacophony develops in which all sorts of incestuous relationships come to pass. Bill is continuously aiming his gun and eventually he fires it at the lianas o none side of the stage. ABC orders him to stop but Bill says that he fires at anything in the jungle that moves that is not white. ABC believes that Bill shot his father, but it appears to be Martin Bormann, a personage from World War II. He erupts in a philosophical delirium, quoting Heidegger in saying that ‘Truth is Non-Truth’ etcetera. Next Tarzan appears.

End of the declamation of Heidegger, intro Tarzan Alex van Royen (Martin Bormann), Peter van de Wouw (Tarzan)

Once again ABC believes to recognize his father. Cinderella believes him to be a gorilla.  Clyde calls him the father of his company’s president. Bormann is sure: he is Arian!

N is for Neighborly Love

In what seems to be a Beatles parody, all sing that neigbouly Love is all they need. They will do anything for it: kill, spy, lie.

For those interested the composers added that the musical structure here is analogous to the one in C is for Culture. The actors sing à la Mothers of Invention [Frank Zappa’s band], with a Darmstadt accompaniment of seven keyboard instruments. The soloists’ choir (B) has meanwhile developed into a sort of Salvation Army choir, complete with tambourines.

O is for War and order

In this conclusive movement of Part I all letters A to O come to pass once again, with a short one liner to summarize or comment on them.

During the Intermission (P is for PAUSE) the chord (for four Hammond organs) which interrupted the Overture in A is for America for some moments is heard – the intermission chord.

PART TWO

P was for Pauze

A Boys’ Choir nproceeds with reciting the alphabet, working from Z down to Q:

Q is for Quetzalcoatl

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