THE SECOND MRS KONG (1994)

An Original Opera
Libretto by Russell Hoban
Set to Music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle

The artwork for Second Mrs Kong from the Glyndebourne Touring Opera's 1994 program

PRODUCTIONS:

• World Premiere—Glyndebourne Touring Opera, 1994 Season. Commissioned by Glyndebourne. Sung in English. Duration: two and a quarter hours including one interval. Performances in Glyndebourne, Oxford, Norwich, Plymouth, Woking, and Manchester.

PUBLICATION:

• Read the Program Notes and Cast of Characters from the Glyndebourne program and Universal Edition script, respectively.

DESCRIPTION:

A brief synopsis: Act One begins on an island in the world of shadows where the dead live. Anubis the jackal-headed boatman arrives, and the dead emerge from the shadows. They include Eurydice, Orpheus, a former beauty queen named Inanna, her spiritual advisor Swami Zumzum, a film producer named Mr. Dollarama, and Vermeer. Kong, too, is here, trying to "work out what he is." It's the idea of Kong, we discover, who's present: not a dead ape, but a live idea. But an idea can't be killed, so what's he doing in the realm of the dead? The dead replay fragments of their remembered lives, and eventually they decide to experience a memory together: Vermeer's first meeting with Pearl, the Vermeer Girl who will pose for his famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. (Pearl is a favorite obsession of Mr. Hoban's, and her symbolism is explored with great detail in The Medusa Frequency and Fremder.) During this encounter, Vermeer hands Pearl a mirror, and she has a vision of Kong in the shadows of the future. The idea of Kong hears her voice as well, and begins to yearn for her.

In scene two, an especially striking and witty scene, Pearl manages to hook up with Kong via video link/computer chat. In scene three, the other dead look on and consider their own memories. Kong decides to pursue Pearl in the land of the living: he grabs Orpheus for a pilot and steals Anubis' boat. "Go for it," cry the dead as Act One ends.

Pearl and Kong meet via videolink: poster art

In Act Two, Orpheus and Kong search for Pearl, pursued by Anubis, Inana, Dollarama, Zumzum, Vermeer and Eurydice in a second boat--because, as Anubis says, "I want to see what happens with him and Pearl." Kong and Orpheus encounter Doubt, Fear, Despair and Terror; there is a struggle and Terror tears off Orpheus' head. In scene two, Kong and the head of Orpheus arrive at the City where Pearl lives, and attempt to get through customs. They are interviewed by a sphinx named Lena. She asks Kong a riddle, and tells him she's been waiting for him, but he spurns her and rushes into the City, still pursued by the others. In scene three, Kong and Orpheus wander into a bad part of town, contact Pearl briefly by phone booth, and then rumble with the Death of Kong, who asserts that the Idea of Kong is that he is, in fact, dead. The other dead arrive and look on as Kong cries "the little puppet died! What I am can never, never die!" He kills the Death of Kong as the dead look on, thrilled. In scene four, Kong arrives at Pearl's penthouse flat in the City. They meet at last. I won't give away the ending, but of course their meeting doesn't go quite as they expect. The opera ends on a poignant note that poetically ties up its themes of desire and pursuit, love and loss.

NOTES:

• The text to The Second Mrs. Kong is dedicated "to the memory of A. T. Hoban," Mr. Hoban's father.

• From Mr. Hoban's introduction to the text:

  I have looked at many reproductions of Girl With a Pearl Earring; several are before me now as I write, and I know that what happens with these is what would happen with the original: no matter how steadily I look at her I cannot see her continuously; she is like music, always partly now and partly remembered. In her look is the terror of Creation, in her eyes a question that can never be answered; on her lips a word never to be spoken. Of course the lost and lonely child that is the idea of Kong will cross the soul's dark sea to find her, and it is in the nature of things that these two predestined lovers can never have each other. But it is the longing for what cannot be that moves the world from night to morning.

The program cover from Glydebourne Touring Opera's 1994 season

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