In this week’s episode, Luis Matos-Tovar gives us a look into Judith Weir’s The Black Spider, a children's opera that challenges gendered expectations of women dying and men surviving that is common in many traditional operas. Weir does this in a manner that is musically accessible to younger performers with a story that is playful, somber, and triumphant.

This episode was produced by Zach Lloyd along with Team Lead Matthew Ferrandino. Special thanks to peer reviewers Colleen Renihan and Evan Ware.

SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/

[SMT-Pod opening theme music]

Welcome to SMT-Pod! The premiere audio publication of the Society for Music Theory. In this week’s episode, Luis Matos-Tovar gives us a look into Judith Weir’s The Black Spider, a children's opera that challenges gendered expectations of women dying and men surviving that is common in many traditional operas. Weir does this in a manner that is musically accessible to younger performers with a story that is playful, somber, and triumphant.

[“Ahhh a spider!!!!!” – Christina screaming]

The children’s opera The Black Spider by Judith Weir premiered on March 6th, 1985. The opera interweaves two different narratives: the first is based on the 1842 novella Die Schwarze Spinne that recounts a story from the medieval period, and the second is based on a 1983 news report from the Times. The main story follows our protagonist named Christina. Her goal in this story is to help her village by solving a problem that Count Heinrich, her wicked landlord, poses to them.

Unfortunately, by resolving the problem a cursed plague overtakes the village by…you guessed it, a black spider! Through trials and tribulations, Christina suffers pain but lives on and saves her village. An important thing to note about this opera is that it references but also subverts a famous operatic trope: that of the suffering of women.

In Opera, or, the Undoing of Women (1988), French Philosopher and feminist, Catherine Clément, points out issues regarding women in opera and how they are traditionally subjugated to death, while their male counterparts survive to tell the tale. In her recent article “The Curatorial Turn and Opera: On the Singing Deaths of Maria Callas,” opera scholar Jelena Novak writes, “Any kind of change, any different point of view [to traditional opera], would be disturbing for the public. The public really likes it done the traditional way, as it was always done, and they want to continue with the genre in that form.” The Black Spider is a special case for an opera as Weir’s story follows traditional operatic forms, but subverts expectations of gender conforming deaths in a playfully ironic way.

[Transition]

Much like Clement, Susan McClary’s Feminine Endings (2002) notes that the “madwomen” in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Strauss's Salome suffer and ultimately die. The subjugation of women is a trope that continues to pervade more recent operas. Monica Hershberger’s book, Women in American Operas of the 1950’s: Undoing Gendered Archetypes, extends Clement’s argument by arguing that while women singing into their demise was still relevant in contemporaneous American opera, the heroines that did not die offered a form of feminist resistance.

By combining Hershberger’s ideas about feminist resistance with Naomi Andre’s concept of “engaged musicology,” which foregrounds how historical works resonate with contemporary concerns of power and Identity, I argue that “Christina’s Aria” in The Black Spider demonstrates Christina’s agency and a feminist resistance toward the death trope in opera. Narratively, I will highlight how Weir does follow traditional operatic forms by setting up Christina’s death by also subverting tonal expectations.

In my analysis of “Christina’s Aria” I will show how unstable cadences correspond with Christina subverting death and the final, stable, cadence reflects her survival and feminist resistance to the gendered archetype of the death trope.

[Transition]

The structure of the opera is divided into three main acts and there are five interludes. The acts are performed in a sung opera and narrate the medieval story, whereas the interludes are spoken and are performed in an acting documentary style. For the purpose of this podcast, I will be focusing on “Christina’s aria” from Act 3, Scene 2, and I will also make some references to the contemporary story, as it all blends elements of mystery, oppression, gender, horror, comedy, among others.

Setting the scene, the sung opera takes place in 1492 Krakow Poland, where monarchs and kingdoms inhabit from sea to sea. The village where the opera takes place is under the regime of Count Heinrich, who taxes the villagers and makes the most obscene requisitions. One day, Count Heinrich requests that the villagers transplant palm trees from the coast and bring them to surround his inland castle.

To the villagers, this demand seems very unreasonable due to the fact that the distance to get the trees to the castle are miles on end, and it would take away the villagers time from their harvesting. Worried about the consequences the villagers discuss a plan to adhere to the request, however nothing seems feasible. To their (mis)fortune, a mysterious Green Man appears and offers aid to them– according to the novella, he is the devil in disguise! He tells the villagers that he will attend to the Count’s request, but under one condition: he asks that someone in the village take his hand in matrimony.

Cue in our main protagonist, Christina ponders the Green Man’s request in an attempt to save the village, but she is hesitant because she already has plans to marry someone else in the village. In an internal struggle to want to save her village but marry her beloved, she creates a plan. She decides to tell the Green Man that she will marry him after he has completed the task and save the village.

Once Christina agrees, the Green Man assures her that if she marries him, he will take care of the village. He then grabs ahold of Christina’s hand and kisses it, and unbeknownst to her, that kiss was a contract with the devil, the curse that transcends time. So, should she not stay true to her word, the village will suffer.

Christina breaks her promise and marries her beloved Carl, and on her wedding day, the kiss that the Green Man gave her on her hand causes her tremendous pain. Right before they are officially husband and wife, out of her hand emerges a black spider to which the priest shouts, “There's a spider!” This is the curse that the village faces, the black spider that causes the plague. Through a series of events, many of the villagers die, and fortunately, the oppressive Count Heinrich dies from the spider.

Christina takes it upon herself to capture the black spider in hopes that she can save the village and stop the curse. By good fortune, she traps the black spider in a guitar and decides to take it to the graveyard to encase it in a tomb to be locked away until its own death. As Christina makes her way up to the graveyard above the village, she suddenly falls ill. Once she reaches the graveyard she begins to sing her aria next to some sculptors, who are in charge of sealing the Count’s tomb.

In Christina’s aria, she shares her wishes, thoughts, and regrets before meeting her expected demise. The first section sung in e-flat minor shares briefly where she comes from and what has happened to the village and her purpose for coming to the tomb. During this part, there is a repetitive 16th-note pattern alternating between 3rds and 5ths accompanied by open sonorities on the lower end of the piano. The melody is primarily sung as ascending and descending scalar passages. Let's listen to a short excerpt of this section to get a sense of aria.

[“Excerpt 1” – measures 14-22.]

The next section has a different texture from the consistent 16th notes and open sonorities to e-flat major in 8th notes and it seems more reflective in nature, as in why she did what she did. She sings, “I only did this for the best, your future safety was my wish.” While Christina looks visibly defeated and on the brink of death, the music contradicts the notion of a stopping point. Weir writes to the performer that Christina should be “sinking to the ground,” “looking exhausted,” and “on the brink of death” at several moments in this aria.

With that last line of text, the music cadences on a V7 chord in 3rd inversion, aurally insinuating that there is more music to come since ending on a V7 chord in 3rd inversion is unstable. Furthermore, the description the score gives to the singer states “Christina seems about to die.” At this moment it seems like Christina is about to die, but is accompanied by the unstable inverted dominant 7th chord. If Christina is actually about to die then a strong authentic cadence would help confirm it since the music would feel more conclusive and affirm her death and not subvert it. Let’s listen for the instability happening at the cadence.

[“Excerpt 2” – measures 37-54.]

Following this section, the music shifts back to e-flat minor and maintains the same 8th note texture as we heard earlier in the aria. A note on the score tells the singer “She rallies slightly, to the men’s surprise.” At this point she is fighting death and it seems like the men were expecting her to die, but alas she prevails. She is very clearly stating that this entire predicament was not her fault as she tries to make amends before she passes.

Later on, as we approach a cadence, Weir writes a note to the performer on the score which says “Christina again seems on the point of death,” and the music mimics the previous section, cadencing on a V7 chord in 3rd inversion. There is a clear juxtaposition between Christina’s death, the unstable harmonic conclusion, and the setting of her character that all seems to imply that her death is being subverted.

A confirmation of her death would therefore be supported with some sort of definitive harmonic conclusion. An imperfect authentic cadence, or perhaps even a root position dominant chord might suffice, but a 3rd inversion dominant 7th chord seems highly unstable and thus not supporting her death expectation. Let's listen to this excerpt.

[“Excerpt 3” – measures 55-66.]

The last section shifts back (for the last time) to e-flat major in a slightly faster tempo than before, and Christina, who was on the brink of death, is suddenly revived. She gets up off the ground quickly with great energy and speed. The text illustrates an optimistic ending with Christina stating, “But now I’ve had a little rest, I think my failing health revives: I feel much better all at once, and now I think I’m going home!” which clearly shows a subversion of the death trope from a narrative perspective.

Additionally, this death trope is subverted in a musically playful manner. For example, the last part of this aria is faster in tempo, the phrase is shorter than previous sections; 8 measures total singing before a perfect authentic cadence in addition to the stark contrast of the previous e-flat minor section to the now parallel major almost takes us by surprise as if we were expecting the previous section to conclude, but here where Christina lives is the true ending. Let's listen to this last excerpt.

[“Excerpt 4” – measures 67-79.]

The gendered archetype of women suffering still haunts her, but surviving death is that feminist resistance towards the death trope. Though it may have seemed like Christina was about to die, she survives and is able to see her village overcome the plague from the Black spider. She was able to save them on her own volition and on top of that, ending the regime of tyranny from Count Heinrich. The black spider is locked away in the tomb, and thus the end of the curse, at least for this era.

Fast forward to the contemporary storyline, a group of scientists open the tomb, setting free the black spider and unleashing it to curse once more. Driven by logic, a group of researchers decided to investigate what this sickness is that caused several people to die. In the final interlude, one of the remaining people states, “there is a rational answer to everything, however mysterious it may be” and right before the lights cut out, the Green Man suddenly clamps his hands over the investigator's face and mouth and thus ends the opera.

What Weir has written in the end is interesting because the Green Man emerged out of nowhere and seemingly takes the life of the last man on stage, the investigator. This is the last moment in the opera and it is almost a reframing of the traditional death trope, to rephrase Clement, it is “the undoing of [men].”

Actually to further this claim, in all eight of Weir’s operas, there is only one in which a woman dies, the rest feature the death of men. This subversion of women dying is prominent in a majority of her operas and almost enforces the undoing of men as a defining characteristic of her oeuvre.

With all this in mind, let's go ahead and listen to Christina’s aria.

[“Christina’s Aria”(~ 3:20).]

The “undoing of gendered archetypes” as Hershberger puts it, is called for in opera studies. Judith Weir’s opera The Black Spider showcases themes of love, comedy, horror, death, and irony. In traditional opera the gendered archetypes that we are familiar with are the suffering of women (and end up dying) while the men live to tell the tale, but the plot of The Black Spider subverts these stereotypes in an eloquent and thoughtful way.

Setting Christina up as if she were going to die but does not and using the music to support that notion to play with the audience is wittyful and ironic–not to mention the fact that Weir consistently wrote in a majority of her operas that men in the story die and not the women!

Opera as we know it has always been concerned with the suffering of women. Zachary Woolfe shares “...this fascination [towards the suffering of women] is strong enough to have lingered into our time.” This emphasizes the point that women’s suffering transcends time. However, as we have seen in this opera, the undoing of these gendered archetypes that confine women to death and men to live on are exchanged. To paraphrase what Grobbler wrote, “female characters surviving in an opera's plot is the ultimate reclamation of agency for opera’s women.”

Actually, at every point in the opera, Christina was given opportunities to help her people and she had agency over all circumstances, which is possibly the reason she survived in the end. The larger point to be made is about how Weir is able to challenge these traditional norms and use music to support her decisions with regards to death subversion, but this could extend across various tropes that we see in opera, film, and other narrative-driven fields.

In this episode, we examined how traditional operatic themes like the death trope transcends time into contemporary opera. Weir’s operas, including The Black Spider, feature women resisting these traditions that Clement discusses, in a manner that reframes the death trope to younger audiences to see that women do not always die, and it is the undoing of men that resolves the plot.

I would like to personally thank Dr. Rachel Lumsden, Megan Lyons, Matthew Ferrandino, Madison Drace (as Christina), my peers, and the entire editorial staff of SMT-Pod. Without your help and guidance, this project could not have been attainable. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope to see The Black Spider performed very soon!

Visit our website smt-pod.org for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. Join in on the conversation by tweeting your questions and comments @SMT_Pod. SMT Pod's theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang.