Operas have traditionally included elements of spectacle and magic, mostly founded in myth. The form first developed during the Renaissance in the late 1500's and early 1600's as a conscious attempt to reproduce the ancient Greek and Roman theater in the "proper manner," with sung recitatives, arias and choruses, as the intellectuals believed the ancients produced them (Walker, 15). One of the first operas ever scored dramatizes the classic Hellenic myth of Orpheus and Euridice.

      The word "opera" is a contraction of the phrase opera in musica, "drama set to music." Essentially "the music is integral and not incidental to the story" (Kennedy, 516). From the start myth has consistently flowed through opera, reaching perhaps the saturation point with Mozart, especially in Die Zauberflote. Other composers -- most notably, Wagner -- have focused on Celtic and Norse mythology.

      The Return of the Native suggests ideal operatic material for several reasons. Both myth and musical devices are tightly woven into the text. Music appears early, in a sort of overture, at the first presentation of Egdon Heath. Within this mythic and archaic setting, Hardy presents the rustic nature of the natives and the steadfast resistance to change as he refers to Greek and Celtic figures and legends. Strengthened by the book's use of magic and superstition, timelessness is manifested by the heath: "Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries" (54). The novel begins on Guy Fawkes day, the heath lying upon the old druidical barrows near the old Roman roads. This "overture" clearly establishes many mythic qualities which permeate the book, including the Promethean fires on this traditional day.

      Intertwined with the somber heath music are the folk-tunes of the heath inhabitants. Hardy presents them as a gossiping crowd, with a role similar to that of a Greek chorus; one of them merrily sings a simple tune to the crowd gathered around the bonfire. "With a stick in [Grandfer Cantle's] hand, he began to jig a private minuet ... in the voice of a bee up a flue" (68). Warm and comic as this introduction to the natives is, Hardy brings us back to the mythic and ancient when he explains the significance of Guy Fawkes Day:

      "Such blazes as this ... are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about the Gunpowder Plot. Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man.... It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat..., foul times, cold darkness, misery and death" (67). The heath-chorus also dance as they revel at the bonfire: "In half a minute ... Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks" (81).

      Eustacia enters this scene laden with operatic mythology. She first appears as an earthen image, her body casting long shadows from the fires. Brian Thomas describes her as "the paganist of classical antiquity (4), whose actions symbolize "a Promethean note of revolt" (6), and indeed, Hardy intended this: "She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries" (118). The heath people move her even farther into the realms of "nocturnal mystery"; they consider her a witch. Susan Nunsuch's pin in church is the most pointed indication of the general superstition surrounding Eustacia. She also inhabits a realistic world, in which she is a nineteen-year-old girl, an orphan without parental guidance, a social outcast, disliked by women, objectified by men. She rebels, even scandalously cross-dressing to see with her own eyes the object of her affections. Thus Eustacia represents the tense juxtaposition of mythic "Queen of Night" and realistic Victorian outcast. On both levels -- mythic and realistic -- she is doomed.

      Opera has traditionally had two classifications, serio or buffo, tragic or comic. In serio, fate and hamartia drive the protagonist to an inevitable end. Eustacia represents two parallel struggles: one of fate, between her will and the resistance of Egdon Heath against change; a second of pride, between her desires and the resistance of the community against her beauty and unconventional behavior.

      Into this operatic world of overture and chorus and tragedy, Eustacia is introduced by music. In her opening lament, or aria, the story focuses on "the queen of solitude." Hardy fills the scene with musical references to both his heath and his leading lady. The wind whistles notes of treble, tenor, and bass, accompanied by the "baritone buzz of a holly tree" (105). The most intriguing of the heath music has a husky pitch, what Hardy calls a "linguistic peculiarity" that "afforded a shadow of reason for the woman's tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever" (105). Although pagan Eustacia comes from this heath and becomes such an integral part of the references to its antiquity, at times she appears to fall short of the "Queen of Wolitude" status. She initially seems petty and selfish in her desires to control Wildeve, yet Hardy portrays her sublime suffering as she joins in the music of the heath:

      "What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something in her mind which had led to her presence here.... One thing was evident in this; that she had been living in a suppressed state, and not in one of languor, or stagnation" (106).

      Because Eustacia embodies the heath in her paganism and free-spirit, she too speaks its music. Her voice sounds like a viola (119), rich and dark. Thus music and the heath surround her. In an opera this idyllic and somber scene would appear as a slow aria in the minor, with basses, cellos, and woodwinds creating the primordial buzz of the heath, on top of which would sigh the rich coloratura of Eustacia.

      Music plays a defining role for other characters and their relationships in the novel. Sound provides Eustacia's first impression of Clym, for she can only hear his voice and fantasize in the chapter titled, "How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream." This scene would provide a powerful force for a melding of different arias and orchestra, which Mozart does so cleverly in Don Giovanni: Eustacia in a transcendent state, Clym blind and oblivious to her creative energy, his music with his "countenance ... overlaid with legible meanings" (194), a counterpoint to hers, contralto against tenor, close notes yet sounds and intention so far away. Mozart looms in the background of Eustacia's voice. In fact, he wrote the role of "the Queen of Night" in Die Zauberflote for his sister-in-law, a coloratura (Angermuller, 224).

      At Mrs. Yeobright's party, Eustacia as mummer is once again surrounded by more rustic music, that of the heath-folk. Still the scene is operatic: "The effect [of Clym's cheerful countenance] was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused her to be influenced by the most commonplace man" (195). Music defines her feelings and moods, creating here a happy scene, not out of place in serio opera. As Christopher Walter explains, "Tragic opera has a delicate balance of tragedy and reflective happiness."

      Music and the heath color the ironic scene of Venn and Wildeve's gambling. Before this battle, the dice have mesmerized Christian Cantle. They seem magical, displaying an ominous fetishism, as the two representatives of good and evil begin rolling, their long shadows cast by the light of a lantern. The heath then takes control of the game with the sound of a moth flying into the flame, glowworms casting barely perceptible light, "a mournful whining from the herons" (293), and the "Hoosh!" (292) of Wildeve scaring away the wild heathcroppers. The music grows percussive:

      "The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was great. Amid the soft juicy vegetation in which they sat, the motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas, the rattle of dice, the exclamation of the reckless players" (293).

      Indeed, the entire novel is rich with opportunities for arias and chorus songs: Clym's blindness, his reaction to his mother's ironic death, Eustacia's lament as she leaves for Budmouth. The scene of Mrs. Yeobright's death would be especially well-rendered by music. She waits for her son in a place near his home "called the Devil's Bellows, and it was only necessary to come there on a March or November night to discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present heated afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up a perpetual moan which one could hardly believe was caused by the air" (340).

      Imagine the orchestration of this scene, which not only precedes her death, but also foreshadows Eustacia's, whose sigh is truly the "Devil's Bellows." In this scene themes overlap; music presents and re-presents themes, mixing them with new realities. The orchestral sound of Eustacia's sighs transforming into the Devil's Bellows could sound chilling. Clym Yeobright would clearly be the leading tenor, whose role involves losing his sight, his mother, and his wife. His stolid nature grounds itself in Egdon Heath, yet his thoughts are morally confused, "a parasite" (194). Hardy has infused Clym with a non-chaotic, non-ecstatic musical presence -- the opposite of his wife, Eustacia: "His features were attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically become attractive in language, and as shapes intrinsically simple become interesting in writing" (225).

      Clym represents goodness, the sound of rightness and clarity. Symbolically Eustacia's heat blinds him; it only remains to be seen if he flies into the light and burns like a moth or rights himself. The frustration at the juxtaposition of his blindness and his resilience would make a wonderful aria. Another opportunity to demonstrate this tension musically would occur when Eustacia discovers him singing while cutting furze. A double aria at this point would clearly show the blindness both have towards each other and their fates.

      Thomasin's voice and mannerisms are birdlike, and thus soprano: "When she was musing she was a kestrel..... When she was in a high wind her light body was ... like a heron's. When she was frightened she darted noiselessly like a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow" (271). She is tested less frequently than other characters because Venn intervenes so often on her behalf. Her arias would sound light, flighty, a violin against Eustacia's viola.

      The decisive character in this book is Diggory Venn. He has reasons and motives, yet he only appears when the character need him. His red coloring symbolize the descent of an incarnated force. In tragic operas one character may represent moral perfection as the others display their human flaws. When fate preys upon these flaws, fatalism prevails. In the first section of the novel Venn appears as a reddleman, a "class rapidly becoming extinct," and talks in "sad and occupied tones" (59). But he embodies truth, becoming the moral force of the novel. He saves Thomasin from the disgrace of the unaccomplished marriage, he returns the money won in the dice game to her, and he saves Clym from death in the river. Musically, he embodies not an instrument, but a set of musical objectives. His music is not grounded in any single note, but contained within a profound theme -- salvation.

      Ending with a beautiful and darkly minor lamentation, The Return of the Native comprises many elements of opera to further the conflicts of society versus the individual, and to evoke a more passionate tragedy. Because this novel already contains such an extensive musical vocabulary, such a tragic aspect, such an element of spectacle, and such operatic characters and choruses, it begs to be staged and sung. Even as we read it in the form of a novel, we sense that the music of the heath and its people provides a rich sense of timelessness and myth. Were The Return of the Native translated to serio opera, the beauty and purpose of the music would wonderfully magnify the catastrophic deaths and the forces that control Egdon Heath, and us all.

-- Caitlin Lowrey © 1998