Evoking Beethoven on the Stage: Peter Ustinov, Stanley Freiberg, and Adrienne Kennedy

I. Introduction While traveling by coach from Baden to Vienna in 1821, Beethoven dozed off and dreamed himself to Syria, India, Arabia, and finally Jerusalem, where he was inspired to write canon on the name Tobias.1 So he wrote in playful letter to Tobias Haslinger, the canons namesake.2 Perhaps taking cue from Beethoven's own dream-wanderings, Peter Ustinov, Stanley K. Freiberg, and Adrienne Kennedy have imagined him in London, on the storm-tossed island of Shakespeare's The Tempest, and in Ghana. Their musings have found expression in three remarkable plays: Beethoven's Tenth,3 Blake and Beethoven in The Tempest,4 and She Talks to Beethoven.5 Ustinov, Kennedy, and Freiberg are among dozens of literary authors who have written about Beethoven and his music. One of the first was E. T. A. Hoffmann, who not only wrote laudatory reviews of Beethoven's newly composed symphonies, pianoforte sonatas, and other works,6 but also created fictional characters such as Johannes Kreisler who strongly resemble the composer. More recently, in Vikram Seth's novel An Equal Music,7 violinist Michael Holme finds special meaning in Beethoven's Pianoforte Trio in C Minor, Opus 1, no. 3, and comes to know the arrangement of this trio for string quintet (Opus 104). And in the forty-eight poems of Beethoven in Denver, Burton Raffel offers whimsical account of what it would be like to have the composer as house guest for couple of months.8 These are just three examples from vast array of Beethoven-inspired poems, dramas, short stories, and novels that have appeared between his lifetime and the present.9 Earlier plays include Sigismund Wiese's Beethoven (1836), Hugh Muller 's Adelaide (1869), Pietro Cossa's Beethoven (1872), Rene Fauchois's Beethoven, and John Lawrence Lambe's Beethoven Deaf (1911).10 While using the composer's letters, conversation books, and biographies as points of departure, Ustinov, Freiberg, and Kennedy have given free rein to their imaginations, allowing Beethoven to transcend time and space and speak directly to historical figures such as William Blake and fictional characters of our own time and the distant past. The plays offer portrayals of the composer that range from worldly and satirical to contemplative, surrealistic, and intensely poetic. They extend and challenge our understanding of Beethoven's life and music and help us to appreciate the composer's continuing power to move his listeners and affect their lives. II. Peter Ustinov's Beethoven's Tenth: Remember I am searcher, not finder Beethoven's Tenth, the best-known and most accessible of the three plays, received numerous performances in London, Los Angeles, New York, Germany, and other locations in the 1980s, with the author himself in the role of Ludwig.11 In the summer of 1996 the play was revived at the Chichester Festival. Ustinov is widely celebrated as an actor on stage, screen, and television, but his impressive behind-the-scenes accomplishments as writer, director, and co-producer are less well-known. The first play he authored, The House of Regrets, was produced in London in 1942. Audry Williamson has praised its Chekhovian overtones and brilliant sense of comic characterization.12 Among his other dramas are Romanoff ana Juliet (1957; made into successful film in 1961), Photo Finish (1962), and Halfway up the Tree (1967). Ustinov also has written novels, including Krumnagel (1971) and The Old Man and Mr. Smith (1990), in which God and Satan tour the Earth in human guises and become involved in numerous misadventures, such as being arrested for counterfeiting. Ustinov's passion for music began in childhood and continues to play vital role in his life. According to composer Rolf Liebermann, Ustinov possesses a comprehensive, almost encyclopaedic knowledge of music, ranging from Mon-teverdi to Boulez.13 That expertise has borne fruit in numerous accomplishments, from Ustinov's involvement in the production, direction, and design of operas such as The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni to his participation in television programs about Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and the orchestra. …