The whole is equal to the sum of its parts

Opera is comprised of music and text – the libretto. The composer chooses the subject for his work – a story or perhaps a play.  He may also accept an appropriate subject that some outside source has suggested.  In either case, the music is matched to the story. This includes time, place and historical period. Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria Rusticana for example, takes place in Sicily around the turn of the twentieth century. The society is agrarian. The story is rather simple. A young man from a village who was in love with a girl from the same village goes off to war.  When he returns he finds that his beloved has married someone else. He, in turn, enters in a liaison with another woman who becomes pregnant with his child though they are not married. The society shuns and ostracizes her. The young man however, maintains a secret and forbidden relationship with his former love. The jealous, rejected woman, informs the cuckolded husband.  During the festivities of the Easter holiday, the husband publically challenges the lover to a duel and kills him.  The themes in this drama are age-old and have been dealt with, by many. However, in Mascagni’s opera, the setting is specific.  It is Easter Sunday; the townspeople, are dressed in their finest clothing.  They have congregated in the village square to celebrate the holiday after having come out of the church service.  The society is Roman Catholic and is religious. The setting is specific and detailed. Mascagni’s music is intended to depict this atmosphere fully.  It is his vision, and only his. Yet I have seen a production of this classic where the action takes place in a stone quarry. Easter Sunday in a stone quarry? Religious Roman Catholics celebrating this sacred holiday in this way? Every reference in the opera negates this interpretation. But this is common practice in the opera houses of today. Many producers and stage managers disregard the specific instructions of the composer. They violate the very spirit of the work. The music may not be divested of the role for which the composer himself intended it; the music and text are inextricably combined. The example is intended to point out the ludicrous results of tampering with the original concept of the composer. It proposes to illustrate that indeed, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.