''The Building of the Boat'' (in Finnish: ) was a projected Wagnerian opera for soloists,

choir A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

, and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

that occupied the Finnish composer

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius (; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic music, Romantic and 20th-century classical music, early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his countr ...

from 8 July 1893 to late-August 1894, at which point he abandoned the project. The piece was to have been a collaboration with the Finnish author , whose

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

(joint with Sibelius) adapted Runos VIII and XVI of the ''

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory ...

'', Finland's

national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks to or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group wi ...

. In the story, the wizard

Väinämöinen () is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical sing ...

tries to seduce the moon goddess Kuutar by building a boat with magic; his incantation is missing three words, and he journeys to the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

of Tuonela to obtain them. In July 1894, Sibelius attended

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

festivals in Bayreuth and Munich. His enthusiasm for his own opera project waned as his attitude towards the German master turned ambivalent and, then, decisively hostile. Instead, Sibelius began to identify as a " tone painter" in the Lisztian mold. As with other aborted projects—for example, the

oratorio An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble. Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguisha ...

'' Marjatta'' (1905) and the orchestral song ''

The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a visit ...

'' (, 1910)—Sibelius did not discard, but rather repurposed, the fruits of his labor. In this case, he incorporated material from ''The Building of the Boat'' into several subsequent compositions, most conclusively: '' The Wood Nymph'' (Op. 15, 1895) and '' The Swan of Tuonela'' (from the '' Lemminkäinen Suite'', Op. 22). Sibelius never again attempted a large-scale opera, making it one of the few genres in which he did not produce a viable work.

History

From the 1870s to the 1890s, the politics of Finland featured a struggle between the Svecomans and the Fennomans. Whereas the former sought to preserve the privileged position of the Swedish language, the latter desired to promote Finnish as a means of inventing a distinctive national identity. High on the "agenda" for the Fennomans was to develop

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

opera, which they "understood as a symbol of a proper nation"; to do so, they would need a permanent company with an opera house and a Finnish-language repertoire at its disposal. Swedish-speaking Helsinki already had a permanent theatre company housed at the Swedish Theatre, and thanks to Fredrik Pacius, two notable, Swedish-language operas: '' King Charles's Hunt'' (, 1852) and '' The Princess of Cyprus'' (, 1860). Success was hard-won: in 1872, the Fennoman Kaarlo Bergbom founded the Finnish Theatre Company, and a year later it named its singing branch the Finnish Opera Company. This was a small group that, without an opera house as residence, toured the country performing "the best of the foreign repertoire", albeit translated into Finnish. However, the Fennomans still remained without an opera written to a Finnish libretto, and in 1879 the Finnish Opera Company folded due to financial difficulties. Acting as a catalyst, in 1891 the Finnish Literature Society organized a competition that provided domestic composers with the following brief: submit before the end of 1896 a Finnish-language opera about Finland's history or mythology; the winning composer and librettist receive 2000 and 400 markka, respectively. Sibelius had seemed an obvious candidate to inaugurate a new vernacular era, given his role in the 1890s as an artist at the center of the nationalist cause in Finland: first, he had married into an aristocratic family identified with the Finnish resistance; second, he had joined the '' Päivälehti'' circle of liberal artists and writers; and third, he had become the darling of the Fennomans with his Finnish-language masterpiece ''Kullervo'', a setting of '' The Kalevala'' for soloists, male choir, and orchestra. The competition was the "initial impulse" for ''The Building of the Boat'', the 1893–1894 project in which Sibelius had aspired to write a mythological, Finnish-language on the subject of

. But Sibelius's opera foundered on the shoals of self-doubt and artistic evolution. In the end, the Society received no submissions, and when Sibelius finally emerged with his first opera, it was 1896's '' The Maiden in the Tower'' to a Swedish libretto.

History

Notes, references, and sources

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading