Steven Paul Scher - Judith Weir's "Heaven Ablaze in His Breast"

Scher, Steven. "Judith Weir's 'Heaven Ablaze in His Breast: A Postmodern Dance Opera Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman'." In Word and Music Studies: Essays on Literature and Music (1967-2004), edited by Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf, 489-504. New York: Rodopi, 2004.


The value of this essay is minimal in and of itself, but the fact that it introduced me to Judith Weir's 1989 dance/opera makes it worth mentioning. It is difficult to follow much of Scher's critical analysis of the work without being familiar with E.T.A. Hoffmann's story and the many other musical and theatrical interpretations in existence. Though the topic of the production is not connected to futurism or cyberpunk, it is lauded as being truly intermedia, crossing the boundaries between dance, theater, and opera with great success. As I hope to eventually create an intermedia stage work based on my current research sometime (far, far) in the future, it seems that Weir's piece is a great place to start gathering information. Nicholas Kenyon said of Heaven Ablaze, "Is it a ballet? Is it an opera? Is it a play? Who cares: it's entirely individual and wonderful." Kenyon's review was one of the few that reflected positively on Weir's production. The composer employed many compositional tricks throughout her work, such as beginning a song in the style of Schubert and quickly spiraling into a much more disjunct and dissonant parody. She also effects a mechanical aesthetic for certain characters, a technique that may well apply to a future-centered work. Weir plays with the concept of narrative by casting two people in each role: one dancer, and one singer/actor. Scher refers to the role of dance in Heaven as "kinetic recetative", a concept that I find fascinating. Narrative can be advanced in ways beyond the spoken or sung word, and I'm sure there are even more narrative possibilities beyond dance and image.

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