Finding Every Last Ounce of Drama in ‘Enoch Arden’

“Enoch Arden” is not exactly one of Richard Strauss’ major works. Many Straussians have never heard of it. In 1897, as a bone to a popular actor who also ran the Munich Opera, the composer wrote a modest piano part to accompany the recitation of Tennyson’s narrative poem. But strangely enough, three of the most technically spectacular and venturesome virtuoso pianists of the past 50 years have championed and recorded it. With Glenn Gould, the reciter was the movie star Claude Rains. Joining the American avant-garde specialist, Yvar Mikhashoff, was the expert in the Russian avant-garde theater (and Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson collaborator), Paul Schmidt.

And most recently the great Canadian tenor, Jon Vickers, came out of retirement to recite the poem with the phenomenal Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin for a special radio broadcast. Vickers repeated that performance Monday night in Smothers Theatre at Pepperdine University, this time with Pepperdine pianist Sara Banta.

Vickers’ performance was extraordinary on two accounts. One is that the legendary tenor, now 73, can hold the stage with exactly the same dramatic intensity as a reciter that he did as a singer--and unlike so many singers, his spoken voice has exactly the same ring and tonal quality as his singing one.

The other extraordinary aspect of the performance was that Vickers made it very clear he held this minor, opportunistic work of Strauss as a profound moral model for our immoral times. In an inspirational lecture before the performance, Vickers called “Enoch Arden” “a powerful contrast to today’s self-centered materialism” and recommended it to all who are searching for a greater meaning in their lives.

What Gould, however, dubbed “Tennyson’s drawing-room epic” describes in maudlin detail the tragic plight of shipwrecked sailor Enoch Arden, who returns home after more than 10 years to find his wife remarried and children content with their new father. Rather than upset this happy new nest, the noble Arden goes off and dies in sacrifice to his beloved family.

The poem is long, the musical inserts are brief but sentimentally effective, illustrating the text with a kind of musical directness that not only was useful practice for a budding opera composer but now also seems a precursor of silent movie accompaniment. Gould found Strauss’ piano score an amusement for its quirky spontaneity. Mikhashoff and Schmidt felt “Enoch Arden” presaged later experiments of text and music by Stravinsky, Robert Ashley and Laurie Anderson.

While others have streamlined the text, Vickers recited it complete and with extreme deliberation (the performance lasted more than 90 minutes). Every poetic sentiment was given lavish emphasis. Vickers’ manner was that of evangelical preacher, pausing after each phrase to let the full significance sink in. His voice rose with fire-and-brimstone emotion at the climaxes. It was a consummate performance from a man who commands attention with every word uttered.

It was also interminable. Indeed, Vickers was so over the top in his dramatic recitation, in his complete absorption with the miraculous effectiveness of his voice, that he entered into just the world of art he had so earnestly thundered against in his earlier lecture entitled “What Is Art?” For Vickers, “art” becomes a devalued term when it can be applied to basketball, bridges, buildings or opera singers. Beauty, likewise, is devalued when everything is seen as beautiful. Art should only serve a higher purpose.

And yet, Vickers’ “Enoch Arden” on Monday served Vickers supremely well. Strauss’ piano score was dutifully played with little dramatic character by Banta as insignificant background--piano lid down, speaker’s voice up thanks to amplification. Meanwhile Vickers wrung so much emotion from so many words for such a long time that somewhere along the line the dramatic narrative snapped. And when it did, his “Enoch Arden” bizarrely entered the realm of just those avant-garde non-narrative works in which beauty exists for beauty’s sake.