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Michael Tippett: The Knot Garden

Synopsis of the action

The scene is a high-walled garden, which sometimes takes the form of a labyrinth or rose-garden, according to the inner situations in the drama. A city may be glimpsed in the distance. The time is the present. Although the action might take place within the space of a single day, the presentation is discontinuous, more like the cross-cutting of a film.

Act I: Confrontation

The orchestral Prelude depicts a storm - clearly a psychological storm, rather than a naturalistic one, for it is like a dance that keeps breaking down, re-starting and again breaking apart. Mangus, a psychiatrist, is seen lying on a couch, as the still point in the storm. Mangus dreams that he has the powers of Prospero (the magician in Shakespeare's The Tempest) and can thus set things right in the world. The imaginary knot-garden which he conjures into existence is his medium for demonstrating his power: he controls its various transformations and manipulates people within it.

The change of scene, here, as elsewhee, is marked by a brief musical flourish, 'Dissolve' music, as Tippett calls it.

Thea appears, tending to the flowers in the garden. Mangus offers to help, but she rejects this: for Thea the garden represents her inner life, which she guards zealously.

Flora enters: she is a disturbed adolescent in the care of Thea and her husband Faber, who follows quickly behind. Thea accuses Faber of sexually harassing Flora. She goes with Mangus into the centre of the garden. Faber curses Thea for the breakdown of their marriage and denies her accusations. Leaving in a mood of bitterness, he asks Mangus to tell Thea he has gone to work.

Mangus reflects on the causes of their marital dissent: Faber's absorption in the outside world of business; Thea's retreat into the inner life. Was it predestined? 'All accident', he concludes: so let's start from where we are now.

In the garden, Flora tells Thea to expect the arrival of her sister, Denise, later that day.

Flora, wandering around the garden, hums a children's counting-song which is interrupted by the arrival of Mel (a black writer) and his gay lover Dov (a white musician). Their relationship has broken down:and the only way they can keep it alive is by pretending to be Caliban and Ariel (in The Tempest) - hence the little pantomime they enact together. As they finish, Mangus and Thea appear, the latter carrying a tray of cocktails and treating the scene before her with icy disdain. But Mangus is more sympathetic and presages further such play-acting: he goes off with Flora to fetch more costumes.

The three that remain take a cocktail each. Thea gazes hypnotically at Mel and draws him away into the garden. Left alone, Dov smashes his glass and howls like a dog in distress. Faber returns and is bewildered by Dov's bizarre behaviour. Dov braves it out, repeating his pantomime ditty to introduce himself and Mel. Faber is half-attracted to him.

Thea and Mel reappear, but before they can respond to the immediate situation, Flora rushes in to announce the arrival of Denise. Mangus anticipates a new dimension to the drama. For whereas all the people encountered so far are preoccupied with personal problems, Denise belongs to the public world of freedom-fighting and resistance to tyranny, from which she bears the scars. Her long aria is often accusatory in tone: she cannot forget or forgive and she regards the others around her as somewhat frivolous and superficial, beautiful but damned.

Seeking relief from all this tension, Mel starts up a blues. The others joins in, expressing their anguish as individuals. The blues speeds up into a boogie-woogie as Faber adopts the traditional pose of the man leaving behind the problems at home to seek respite in the night-life of the city.

As the slow blues resumes, the hubbub intensifies. Raising his voice above it all, Mangus confesses himself impotent to provide any resolution other than resorting to prayer.

Act II: Labyrinth

The garden is now a maze. Mangus takes control of the successive meetings between the characters. Each encounter is introduced by music based on the opening 'storm' prelude of Act I, speeded up or slowed down and harmonically conflated. First to appear are Thea and Denise, singing of their respective fears. As Thea reaches out to Denise, she is drawn away and Faber is whirled on to replace her.

Faber complains to Denise of Thea's sulky withdrawal from their relationship. But Denise, unable to sympathise, simply asserts her own inner toughness. She is drawn away into the maze and replaced by Flora.

Flora, singing her counting-song again, backs away frightened from Faber. He finds this absurd and exhorts her to grow up. Terrified of his advances, Flora retreats into the maze and is replaced by Thea.

Thea attacks Faber for what she perceives as arrogant chauvinism, forcing him down onto the ground on all fours. Her attack on him is curtailed and she is replaced by Dov.

This scene reverses their first encounter in Act I: now it is Faber who is in a sorry state and Dov uncomprehending. Dov howls ironically and Faber, expecting sympathy, becomes even more attracted to him, as he is told of the breakdown of Dov's affair with Mel. Faber is about to kiss him, but is drawn away as Mel arrives.

In a kind of song-and-dance routine, Mel reprimands Dov for mistaking physical attraction for a fully-fledged love-relationship: the love between themselves is no more secure personally than it could be racially. Mel's crucial advice to Dov is, 'Go turn your howls to music'. Dov is whirled off and replaced by Denise.

Mel and Denise find some common ground in the fight for freedom, justice and dignity. The song 'We shall overcome' emerges within the orchestral accompaniment and Mel joins in at the climax.

The maze now appears to go into reverse, with the characters returning in quick succession.

Dov appears and mocks Mel. Thea returns and Mel mocks her. Flora enters, pursued by Faber and takes refuge downstage. Thea and Faber confront each other briefly, then disappear.

We now reach the turning-point of the opera: from here onwards, there is hope of a resolution to all the psychological turmoil.

Dov comforts Flora. He persuades her to sing - which is how he, a musician and singer, normally copes with distress - but all she knows is a Schubert love-song (orchestrated and embellished in Tippett's version)- moreover, a boy's song: altogether a symbol of her adolescent immaturity and sexual ambivalence.

Dov, slightly more mature than Flora, responds by singing his own song - one that is idiomatically rooted in the present, with the sounds of electric guitar and vibraphone prominent. Dov sings of his childhood and youth in the big cities, of his dreams of love in the warm south and Californian west. The first stanza of his song is addressed to Flora, but with the second, he stands up to address the world: Dov has begun to blossom into an artist. Meanwhile, the maze transforms itself into a rose-garden. Mel interrupts the dialogue of the two innocents: he claims it was he who taught Dov this song of love, but dismisses it all as false. The rose garden fades.

Act III: Charade

Mangus has persuaded some of the characters to take part in a series of charades based on The Tempest. Thea and Denise comment on his illusions of power. In the first charade, Mangus-Prospero and Flora-Miranda explore the imaginary island on their first day. They encounter Mel-Caliban dumbly crawling about and decide he should be 'civilised'. Next, they find Dov-Ariel trapped in a tree. They release him, but he flings himself on Mel-Caliban. Separating them, Mangus warns that they should not exceed the limits of play-acting.

Staying apart from the charades, Thea warns Mangus that human beings are bound to do more than act out a script. She encourages Denise to respond with more warmth to Mel. Denise, worried by the 'impurities' of love, resists.

Flora-Miranda sleeps, with Dov-Ariel guarding her. Mel-Caliban creeps up and leaps upon her, intending rape. She runs off, screaming. Denise berates Mel-Caliban for his behaviour. Unable to accept his sensual nature, she goes off more upset still after being reminded of his gay relationship with Dov. But with Dov's encouragement, Mel follows her.

Thea questions whether Mangus-Prospero is merely a dabbler in power, a pimp or voyeur. He promises a scene of reconciliation to come.

The next charade is a game of chess between Faber-Ferdinand and Flora-Miranda. She accuses him of cheating and sends the chessboard flying. Standing up to him, she at last asserts her freedom.

Faber-Ferdinand, feeling wronged, sets up the chessboard again to play with Thea. This brings them together again in what might become a true relationship.

Mangus-Prospero and Faber-Ferdinand leave and as Thea sings of her loss of fear, the opening storm prelude goes into reverse, in a gently undulating rhythm.
There follows a trial scene in which Flora-Miranda and Mangus-Prospero decide the fate of Dov-Ariel and Mel-Caliban. The latter is allotted the role of slave. Dov-Ariel taunts him about this and they start fighting again.

Realising that his magical powers don't really exist at all, Mangus calls a halt to the charade and strides to the footlights. The rest of the cast join him and agree that reconciliation is possible only through timid, momentary expressions of love. Sharing in a vision (that echoes a Goethe poem) of the whole of humanity holding a magic net and dancing inseparably together (the opposite of what happened in the opening 'storm' prelude), they then make their final exits.

Mel leaves with Denise; Flora radiantly anticipates a brave new world of maturity. Dov, the eternal loner, leaves on his own, evoking pity. Mangus disappears.

It is night. Thea and Faber discard their daily preoccupations and turn to each other in a mood of acceptance. As the curtain falls in the opera, it rises in their lives. The storm-motif is transformed into a final ecstatic musical gesture.

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