Article Sur Antigone

French Identity in Flux: The Triumph of Honegger's "Antigone"
Author(s): Jane F. Fulcher

Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 36, No. 4, Opera and Society: Part II
(Spring, 2006), pp. 649-674
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3656350
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Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxvi:4 (Spring, 2006), 649-674.
Jane F. Fulcher
French Identity in Flux: The Triumph of

Honegger's Antigone When Arthur Honegger's Antigone
was staged in Paris, sixteen years after its Brussels premiere, having
first been rejected by the Paris Op6ra as too "advanced" for the
public, its impact shattered all expectations. This time major critics
proclaimed it a chef-d'oeuvre, lauding the director's courage in
finally mounting this uncompromising work of bracing innova-
tion in French operatic declamation and strident bi- and atonal
music. Audiences, equally enthralled by Honegger and Jean Coc-
teau's still audacious, boldly modernist opera, pressed to its perfor-
mances, irrepressibly, and inappropriately, interrupting it with ap-
plause.1
Unexpected as Antigone's French triumph may have been, its
occurrence in 1943, several months after the entry of German
forces into previously unoccupied parts of France, is even more
surprising. Just as perplexing, given this historical conjuncture, is
that reviews in the collaborationist journals, Je suis partout and
Comoedia, as well as in the Vichy-sanctioned L'Information musicale,
had nothing but praise for both the opera's music and its text. The
fact that both Vichy and Nazi authorities, as well as critics, ap-
proved the work, helps to crumble the notion that both regimes
exercised strict ideological controls against modernism in music.
Indeed, recent scholarship has increasingly recognized that Vichy
countenanced a temperate modernism, as did the Nazis, who pro-
moted their own "modernist," Werner Egk, in France. The case
of Antigone, however, can reveal how a more trenchant operatic
modernism and its challenging interrogations could penetrate
those less controllable spaces created by Vichy's fractures and
French state collaboration.2
Jane F. Fulcher is Professor of Music, Indiana University. She is the author of The Composer as
Intellectual: Music and Ideology in France 1914-1940 (New York, 2005); French Music and Politics
from the Dreyfus Affair to the First World War (New York, 1 999).
? 200oo6 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, Inc.
I On the original rejection of the work in Paris, see Andre Coeuroy, "L'Antigone
d'Honegger,"Je suis parout, April 14, 1943. For a description of the audience's applause during
Antigone's "Farewell," see "Antigone: entendue et vue par Werner Egk," Comoedia, February
6, I943.
2 On Vichy-approved "modernism," see Leslie Sprout, "Les Commandes de Vichy: Aube
650 JANE F. FULCHER
Vichy sought to use opera as a means to appease its ow

gressive factions, the German authorities, and the restiv
public. The performance of Antigone illuminates the
Vichy, the multifaceted culture that it fostered, and the
kind of modernism that it encouraged.
VICHY, GERMAN OCCUPATION, AND FRENCH TRADITION

study of Antigone illustrates that beneath the rhetoric of F
ditionalism lay factional disagreements that sometimes m
for striking innovations-a case in point being Antigone's
tation in style and fluidity in perspective. Moreover, th
of French nationalism could obfuscate the reality of Fre
promise with Germany not only in politics but also in cu
specifically in conceptions of authentic French style. H
music, which appealed to all of Vichy's groupings, cut a
Franco-German divide, thus mirroring Vichy's inconsiste
compromises, as vividly exemplified in the case ofAntigo
miere.
In the broadest sense, the facts about Antigone lead beyond the
long-entrenched debate about modernism's affinity for either fas-
cism or rebellion. They compel a re-examination of the very con-
cept of modernism and of the ways in which some of its subsets
and strains could serve and undermine certain kinds of power.
How could Vichy's culture accommodate such bold experimenta-
tion and cosmopolitanism, despite its self-proclaimed nationalism
and traditionalism?
In Paxton's view, contrary to Philippe P~tain's later claims,

Vichy's intent to serve as a buffer against the Germans was clearly
more rhetoric than reality. Attempts to meet-and in some cases
to anticipate-escalating German demands led to a "collaboration
d'&tat," which became indistinguishable from ideological collabo-
ration. Under Germany's shadow, the regime became an opportu-
nity for those conservative groups who had lacked power in the
Third Republic to exact political revenge and implement their
own social programs. Vichy's traditionalists quickly gave way to its
d'une 2re nouvelle," in Myriam Chimbnes (ed.), La Vie musicale sous Vichy (Brussels, 2000zooo),
159-I60, 167-171. For a brief summary of modernizing currents within the Nazi musical es-
tablishment, see Michael H. Kater, The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third
Reich (New York, 1997), I83-188.
THE TRIUMPH OF HONEGGER'S ANTIGONE 651
technocrats and bureaucrats, who radically switched

centralized and urban-oriented domestic policy. Vichy,
was unable to prevent the forced labor of its citizens or
the Jews, both foreign and French, on its soil.3
Finally, as Paxton and Hoffmann both noted, power
to shift fluidly between Vichy's warring factions, whic
not only adherents of the Action FranCaise, but also le
ments and French fascists. The result was an "incoheren
lacking unanimity in both social vision and identity. Wh
tuted French values during Vichy was far from clear. T
dictory nature of the government's goals led to inconsis
confusion in its cultural policies, and, as Dorliac has sho
admission of not only moderate but audaciously modern
tures in all of the arts, despite calls for a return to French t
The Action FranCaise continued to argue, as it had s
time of the Dreyfus Affair, for restoration of unadulterate
and prerevolutionary values, but its ardent chauvinism
clear risk. As time progressed, the conception of French
promoted at the Schola Cantorum, the nationalist conse
that Vincent d'Indy had helped to found in the I890
more appealing. Its ideals were close to those of the grou
formed around Georges Sorel before World War I, whe
left and right had joined in a "national-socialist" m
Sharing its stress on spirit and emotions, its antisemitism
condemnation of democracy and capitalism, d'Indy had
the editorial board of its journal, L'Indipendance. This g
had admirers at Vichy, who were aware that d'Indy had
member, participating in its organization and publicatio
D'Indy had argued that all great music, most notabl
Ludwig van Beethoven, was spiritual, and that "classics"
3 Stanley Hoffmann, "Collaborationism in France during World War II,"Journa
History, XL (1968), 377-378; Denis Peschanski, "Exclusion, persecution, rhpressi
Pierre Rioux and FranCois Bidarida (eds.), Vichy et les Frangais (Paris, 1992), 20
Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 194o-1944 (NewYork, 1972)
366, 371-372.
4 Paxton, Vichy France, 259-268, 139-145, 185-200oo; Laurence Bertrand
Question artistique et le rhgime de Vichy," in Rioux (ed.), La Vie culturelle
(Brussels, 1990), I44-I46.
5 On the former left at Vichy, see Paxton, Vichy France, 273-279; on the trad
cluding the "Action FranCaise," 268-273. On the French fascists, their place a
see Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs 1940-1945 (Paris, 1976). Fulcher, French Cultur
Music from the Dreyfus Affair to The First World War (New York, I1999), I33-
652 JANE F. FULCHER
sort were amenable to the cultures of different nations.

to d'Indy, the Germans saved "pure" classic culture w
French had abandoned it, and later Richard Wagner
C~sar Franck and the French Wagnerians rescued it
d'Indy reasoned, great French and German composers w
of the transcendent classical tradition, which cosmopol
cifically Jewish, elements had since sullied.6
This conception provided an apt compromise for
Close examination reveals that during World War I, the
ers who appeared most frequently on programs were no
Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, or others with strictl
credentials but composers considered classic in the Vienn
or linked to Wagner: d'Indy, Franck, Emmanuel Chabrier
Bachelet, Edouard Lalo, Claude Debussy (then construed
tically close to Wagner), Charles Gounod and Georges B
nounced in their own day as too Wagnerian), and Hecto
(excluded earlier from d'Indy's canon because of his so-
zarre Romantic nature"). Viewed in these circles as the
and then advocate of Wagner, as well as of Franz Liszt
claimed him for the "New German School"), Berlioz e
became the model European composer in propaganda
Hitler's "new Europe.'
Resistance journals attacked Vichy's rhetoric, incisive
tifying it as hypocrisy aimed at masking a growing
influence and helping to undermine French unity and pr
theme appears repeatedly in the musician's resistance
Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (originally a supplement to Le
franfaises), which made it a point to denounce ideologica
presentations of French works-particularly those to
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-by Berlioz, Gounod, a
Massenet. But the contrary Franco-German argument w
favor of Honegger, another perfect hybrid for the Ger
for Vichy, combining the stylistic traits of both nation
where more palpably than in Antigone.
Repertoire choices indeed reflected compromise, b
tional and factional, largely reflecting the Schola's
French tradition or Franco-German preference. This
6 Fulcher, French Cultural Politics, 32-33.

7 On France in Hitler's "new Europe," see Pascal Ory, Les Collaborateurs, 15
helped to mask Vichy's exclusions, and those of the Germans,
which were primarily based on racial or political criteria, not sty-
listic ones. The Germans tended to be lenient about matters of
style, since they were anxious to forestall protests from pop
and elite culture, and they often forced Vichy to soften its positi
as well. Even during the period preceding total occupation,
Propaganda Abteilung, tied to the German military administra
in France, controlled Radio Paris and the press, carefully moni
ing Vichy's propaganda. Although initially holding authority o
in the North, it extended its reach by rationing paper. Germ
cultural influence was evident in both the North and the South
and it became less subtle after total occupation in Novem
I942.8
One strategy of German music propaganda, which directly
benefited Honegger and Antigone, was to stress the affinities be-
tween French and German music of the past and present, thus im-
plying that French music was not distinct. In fact, the Institut
Allemand, tied to the German Embassy under Otto Abetz (which
was in competition with the Propaganda Abteilung), organized
concerts throughout France partly to make this point. Under its
sponsorship, German performing organizations, as well as presti-
gious artists, gave concerts in large and small French cities, some-
times combined with lectures. Beyond its seat in Paris, the Institut
Allemand formed eleven other branches in French provinces to
8 On the composers whose works could be performed at Vichy, see Josette Alviset, "La
Programmation musicale 1 Vichy: les apparences de la continuitb," in Chimbnes (ed.), La Vie
musicale sous Vichy, 404-406. On Vichy's censorship as racial and political, as opposed to stylis-
tic, see Bertrand-Dorlbac, LArt de la defaite 194o-1944 (Paris, 1993), 262; Barbara Panse, "Cen-
sorship in Nazi Germany: The Influence of the Reich's Ministry of Propaganda on German
Theater and Drama, 1933-I1945," in Gunther Berghaus (ed.), Fascism and Theater: Comparative
Studies in the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe 1925-1945 (Providence, 1995), 140-
156. On the Propaganda Abteilung, see Claude Lbvy and Dominique Veillon, "Propagande et
modelage des esprits," in Jean-Pierre Azbma and Bbdaria (eds.), Vichy et les Frantais (Paris,
1992), 198-199. On Vichy's eventual cooperation with the Germans on censorship, see Gisble
Sapiro, La Guerre des &rivains 1940--1953 (Paris, 1999), 49, 32-33. For Radio Paris' use of music
to mollify the French, see Cbcile Mhadel, "Pauses musicales ou les 6clatants silences de Radio-
Paris," in Chimbnes (ed.), La Vie musicale sous Vichy, 235-251. I am again grateful to Pamela
Potter for sending me her unpublished paper, "Reflections on the Current Status of Nazis,
Nazi Musicians, and Nazi Musicology," in which she argues, pronouncements against "de-
generate" operatic works in Germany were inconsistent, and new operas that included disso-
nance and atonality thrived (22). See also idem, Most German of the Arts: Musicology and Society
from the Weimar Republic to the End of Hitler's Reich (New Haven, 1998). On the role of music
in German cultural propaganda in France, see Mauela Schwartz, "La Musique, outil majeur
de la propagande culturelle des nazis," in Chimines (ed.), La Vie musicale sous Vichy, 95-99.
654 JANE F. FULCHER
disseminate the propaganda of a Franco-German alliance.

French group called Collaboration, which had such prom
members as Florent Schmitt and Marcel Delannoy, worked cl
with them, though often concealing its German input. Eq
surreptitious was the promotion of Abetz's goal to establish
man cultural supremacy within France and abroad.9
Blurring once again the borders between nationalism and
laboration, the Vichy regime recognized and cooperated
Collaboration, which sponsored six concerts in 1941/42, u
the title "Jeunes musiciens frangais et allemands," to encou
exchanges between young composers of both nations. A
French style was clearly not the goal. This slippage of French
tural identity would redound to the benefit of composer
Honegger, and works like Antigone. In its guise as cultural
ness, it helped to obscure the repressive mechanisms of both
and the Nazis, which were now functioning in tandem to pe
cute Jews, Freemasons, and many foreigners.10
THE PARIS OPERA The Paris Opera was more than willin
please the Germans, as well as various Vichy factions. Its dire
Jacques Rouch6, often had to mediate between German ex
cies and shifting French demands. Rouch6 cleverly played u
Vichy's contradictions to obtain the most favorable fina
terms, assuring officials that the Opera could be a propaganda
for the French and proudly sending them his letters of app
from Abetz."1
9 Schwartz, "La Musique," 93-95, 10o4. On Franco-German cooperation in music

jects, see Philippe Burrin (trans. Janet Lloyd), France Under the Germans: Collaboration an
promise (New York, I995), 347. Serge Added, Le Theatre dans les annees Vichy 194o-1944
I992), 96-97, I03-Io4.
Io Guy Ferchault, "Jeunes musiciens franCais et allemands," L'Information musicale, 55
ary 3, 1942, 746. On "Collaboration," see the file of Resistance bulletins in AN- FIA
especially that of 23/9/43 ("Groupe Collaboration"), as well as AJ4o/1594 #292 ("S
allemands implantbs en France"), "Les Confbrences du Groupe 'Collaboration,'" Ar
Nationales, Paris (the location of all "AN" material hereinafter); Ory, Les Collaborateu
64.
11 On Rouchb's negotiations, see Sandrine Grandgambe, "La Rbunion des theaters
lyriques nationaux," in Chimbnes (ed.), La Vie musicale sous Vichy, 112, I 15. For Rouchb's
correspondence with Vichy, see AN- F21/5254, letter of September 26, 1940 to the
"Directeur Ginbral des Beaux-Arts," in which he encloses a copy of a complimentary letter
from Abetz. On the cooperation of Vichy and Nazis in the repression of Jews, Freemasons,
and many foreigners, see Peschanski, "Exclusion, persbcution, rbpression," 209.
Not surprisingly, the Paris Op6ra consistently played

house of predominantly bourgeois patrons, offering t
(comprising 20 percent of the seats) to the German auth
without charge, though Vichy reimbursed the director f
Other seats were made available to the German troo
flocked to Serge Lifar's lavish ballets, at a 50 percent re
obtained exclusively through a German military bureau.
performances were reserved exclusively for Germans-fo
ple, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, which was given by Her
Karajan and the Berlin Staatsoper for members of the We
in May I941. Documents indicate that the Op6ra selected
ertoire in several ways: Either Rouch6 decided (often in
with Vichy priorities or with the Op&ra's mandate to pre
works by French composers), or the Germans made their
known to him-as in the case of Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina
Egk's Peer Gynt (1938), his ballet]Joan de Zarissa (1940), a
ard Strauss' Ariadne aufNaxos (1916).12
In 1942, the Directeur g~niral of the Ministbre de l'I
tion Publique et des Beaux-Arts wrote to Rouch6 about t
necessity of satisfying Vichy's progressive and traditional
by maintaining artistic tradition and presenting modern
("the image of our times, the indication or promise of the
cies of the future"). He advised the Opera to combine the
vative doctrines of a museum with the initiatives of "audacious
discoveries," citing the need for works to educate young compo
ers as well as to "form the culture of the public." This seeming
impossible directive reveals the climate in which a work of de
moral reflection and artistic innovation like Antigone could rea
the Opera's stage a year later, despite what might appear, on fi
glance, to have been insurmountable obstacles.13
12 Grandgambe, "La Reunion des Thhatres Lyriques Nationaux," 114, 115; AN- F
5254, letter from Rouchh, May 9, 1941, to the "Secr~taire G~nbral des Beaux-Arts."
13 Grandgambe, "La Reunion," II8-II9; "Fonds Rouchh, Piece 50, Rapports et p
grammes de l'Opbra et de l'Op~ra-Comique de 1914 a I943," Bibliothbque de l'Opb
Bibliothique National de France. For the introduction of German operatic works into Fre
theaters to symbolize Franco-German collaboration, see Added, Le Theatre dans les an
Vichy, 113-114; for German attempts to restore "normalcy" by stimulating French theat
life, 98. On Vichy's musical censorship, see Denise Tual, "Itineraire des Concerts
Pl~iade," Musique, Rhs. Vm. dos. 70(I), 2, Bibliothbque Nationale de France. On comm
sioned operas, see Sprout, "Les Commandes de Vichy," 17o-171; more broadly, idem, "Mu
for a New Era: Composers and National Identity in France 1936-1946," unpub. Ph.D.
656 JANE F. FULCHER
In 1941, the Secr6taire g6nbral des Beaux-Arts wrot

Rouch6 that the German authorities requested a revival
Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon (1913), with music by Honegger
Jacques Ibert. Honegger undoubtedly figured heavily in this
sion, both for the Germans and for the French; he was hard
outcast. Cutting across the Franco-German divide, he als
pealed to all of Vichy's factions: The Action Frangaise adulate
traditionalism, the fascists his Romanticism, and the former
wing his populism and technocracy. Elected to the Acad
Frangaise in 1938, he, like many of its other members (as S
recently established), served as a cultural mediator between
Germans and Vichy. Moreover, although known to be hostil
Vichy, Ibert now transcended all divisions, clearly becoming
man of the hour.14
HONEGGER AND COCTEAU One plausible explanation for Honeg-

ger's prominence during this era is that he was as confused about
his cultural identity and the means to express it (as Antigone shows)
as Vichy was. Raised in Le Havre, France, by Swiss-German par-
ents, except for two years when he attended the Conservatory in
Zurich before acceptance in the Paris Conservatoire, Honegger
cautiously opted for Swiss citizenship as World War I approached.
He remained in Paris throughout the war, studying with, among
others, d'Indy, who was temporarily teaching at the Conserva-
toire.
As Honegger put it, he arrived in Paris enamored of Max

Reger and Richard Strauss, but was soon seized by the works of
(Univ. of California, 2000); Fershault, "Programmes, commentaires, critiques," L'Information

musicale, September 9, 1941, 9. On Vichy's legislative initiatives aimed at exclusion, see
Peschanski, "Exclusion, pers&cution, repression," 211-212; Fonds Rouch6, Piece o109 A (14),
letter to Rouch6 from the "Ministire de l'Instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts; Musique,
Spectacles, Radiodiffusion," August 27, 1940, Biblioth~que de l'Opira, Bibliothbque Nation-
ale de France.
14 For the request that L'Aiglon be performed, see Fonds Rouch6, Piece 109 A (24), letter
to Rouch6 from the "Secr~taire G~niral des Beaux-Arts," June 12, 1941, Biblioth~que de
l'Op~ra, Bibliothbque Nationale de France. Sapiro, La Guerre, 92. On Honegger's multiple
appeal, see Fulcher, "Romanticism, Technology, and the Masses: Honegger and the Aesthetic
Allure of French Fascism," in Julie Brown (ed.), Western Music and Racial Discourses, 1883-1933
(New York, forthcoming). When Ibert went to North Africa in 1940 with members of parlia-
ment who wanted to continue fighting, Vichy replaced him as director of the "Acad~mie de
France & Rome" and proscribed his music. The Germans, however, overruled the French.
See Frangois Porcile, Les Conflits de la musiquefrangaise 194o-1965 (Paris, 2001), 21.
Faur6, Debussy, d'Indy, and Alb6ric Magnard. Stylistic t

between French and German influence, as well as between
tion and innovation, are evident in all of Honegger's wo
haps more than in those of the other members of Les S
Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Honegger, Louis Durey, G
Tailleferre, and Georges Auric, most of them recent grad
the Conservatoire whom Cocteau admired. Honegger n
jected the conservative teaching of d'Indy, his stress on f
the models of Johann Sebastian Bach, Beethoven, Fra
Wagner, and he never repudiated the music of Debu
Maurice Ravel, as Cocteau and other members of Les Six
Honegger's music was also less concerned with iron
mentary, or "disruption" and provocation, than that of
leagues, although he too resisted cultural restrictions and
embraced the modern world. His orientation was toward tradi-
tion, both German and French, but enriched by contemporar
techniques; his gift was to convey "the modern" within t
framework, making it accessible to a broad public. Honegger, l
the general audience that he attracted, had a sincere need to co
nect with a grand tradition, in which he still found much comf
and beauty.
Honegger's love of tradition and his disregard for the values
of the avant-garde elite, whom he had once courted after Satie's
ballet Parade (1917), clashed with Cocteau's confrontational decla-
rations in Le Coq et l'arlequin (Paris, 1918); the tensions between
the two men increased during the early I920s. Cocteau and
Milhaud described Honegger's oratorio, Le Roi David (1921), as
"treasonous," though the postwar audience and other critics
warmly greeted it. Its style, unlike that of Antigone, is immediately
accessible, partly because of its simple melodic structure and use of
repetition, despite its often bold harmonic language. Honegger
and Cocteau had reconciled by the late I920s, as Cocteau grew
more religious, sober, and conservative, publishing his Rappel e
l'ordre in 1926. Honegger, in the meantime, had accepted a com-
mission from Charles Dullin to write the incidental music for
15 Honegger (trans. Wilson O. Clough), I Am a Composer (New York, 1966), 91; Jame
Harding, The Ox on the Roof Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in the Twenties (New York, 1972),
122, 128. On Honegger's background, training, and tense relation with other members of Le
Six, see Fulcher, The Composer as Intellectual: Music and Ideology in France 1914-1940 (New
York, 200oo5), 86-198.
658 JANE F. FULCHER
Cocteau's play, Antigone, which premiered at Dullin's Theat

l'Atelier in December 1922.16
COCTEAU'S ANTIGONE With his Antigone, Cocteau sought t

date the wartime and postwar classicism that propaganda
moted as inherently French or Latin (as the French now
claimed themselves), to create, like Satie and Les Six, a moder
neo, classicism. In 1922, he expressed his intention to write a
that would put "new dress on the old Greek tragedy, adapting
the rhythm of our own language." The choice of Antigone wa
rived from his experience of Sophocles' original at the Com
Frangaise-featuring incidental music by Camille Saint-S
which he proclaimed to be "incredibly boring." In makin
compressed, updated version, Cocteau followed Sophocles
closely, probably even consulting the original Greek text, al-
though abridging it astutely to provide a synoptic, modern per-
spective. In Cocteau's words, it was a "pen drawing after a paint-
ing by an old master," or "an aerial photograph of the Acropolis,"
which did indeed stress the contours, revealing the play in a new,
modern light."17
Cocteau's interpretation, or appropriation, emerged within
the context of a rebellion by French youth against conservatism
and patriotism during and after the war. Although his abridgement
intensifies the moral conundrums within Sophocles' play, Coc-
teau's own synopsis, often cited in literature about the opera, is
misleading, perhaps consciously so. As Cocteau succinctly put it,
"Crbon, King of Thebes, commands that the body of the traitor,
Polynice, should not be buried in a grave, but left in the open for
the animals to devour. Antigone, sister of Polynice, is determined
to disobey his orders. She takes the body and buries it. For having
disobeyed she must die. But the soothsayer Tir6sias tells Crbon
that terrible things will befall him if he doesn't free Antigone. Un-
der this impression, Cr6on decides to take heed of the warnings.
But, too late! Antigone is dead. Furious, H~mon, son of Crbon
and Antigone's fianc6e, turns his sword against his father. He fails
16 On Cocteau's feeling of betrayal, see Harding, Ox on the Roof 127-129; on Poulenc's,

Poulenc (ed. Chim~nes), Correspondance 191o-1963 (Paris, 1994), 226. Francis Steegmuller,
Cocteau: A Biography (Boston, 1970), 297; Tual, Au Coeur du temps (Paris, 1987), 56.
17 Steegmuller, Cocteau, 292-293.
and himself dies over the remains of Antigone. When Queen
Eurydice hears of these new tragedies she dies also. Crbon, finally
deprived of them all and denied support, falls too."18
This pr6cis captures neither the complexity nor the provoca-
tive dilemmas inherent in the story. It obscures the contemporary
resonance of Cocteau's subtle variations on, and powerful com-
pression of, the text. In Sophocles' "multi-voiced" masterpiece,
Crbon faces the problem of healing the body politic, torn between
conflicting loyalties and systems of value (self, family, and commu-
nity), making justice ambiguous. In Zeitlin's words, "Living, as he
thinks, in the all-absorbing political moment, he takes a stand
which paradoxically suggests that mortal life has no finitude." For
Antigone, who sees herself heroically, death, to the contrary, is
"the timeless eternity, the absolute principle to which she gives
her undivided allegiance," and she "privileges it over mortal
life. "19
Crbon, as the tragic hero, is the "architect of his own down-

fall," the bearer of contradictions who must learn from his suffer-
ing. The audience consequently identifies both with Crbon and
the omnipresent social consciousness represented by the chorus.
Cocteau aimed at preserving the Greek notion of tragedy-"per-
sons acting under constraint, conditioned by character and fate."
Although this sense of tragedy "abjures moral teaching," it reveals
that freedom is limited, thus urging understanding and compas-
sion. In an attempt to prevent a facile appropriation of this drama
as a plea for authority and patriotism, Cocteau condensed the text
to its bare essentials, emphasizing the juxtaposition of familiarity
and violence, and introducing words like "anarchiste," without
traducing the intent of the original Greek. Like Sophocles, he em-
ployed colloquialisms where appropriate, particularly to capture
the quick temper of Cr6on, as well as the speech of characters with
18 On the conservative postwar climate, see Fulcher, "The Composer as Intellectual: Ideo-
logical Inscriptions in French Interwar Neoclassicism," Journal of Musicology, XVIII (1999),
197-230; on its roots in World War I, idem, "Speaking the Truth to Power: The Dialogic Ele-
ment in Debussy's Wartime Compositions," in idem (ed.), Debussy and His World (Princeton,
2001). Spratt, Music of Arthur Honegger, 95.
19 Froma Zeitlin, "Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama," in John J.
Winkler and idem (eds.), Nothing to Do with Dionysis? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context
(Princeton, 1989), 152. On Antigone's heroic vision of herself, see the commentary in Sopho-
cles (trans. David Franklin and John Harrison), Antigone (New York, 2003), 38.
660 JANE F. FULCHER
lower social status. Above all, he intensified the manner in w

Sophocles, and indeed ancient Greek drama, probed prof
moral issues by avoiding a fixed point of view.20
In the face of monological wartime propaganda, Coct
like Satie in Socrate (I918), turned to the ancient Greek mode
part because it presents different viewpoints on moral i
dialogically. Cocteau acutely emphasized the perspectivism o
cient drama through his excisions-nowhere more poigna
than in Antigone's farewell before her death and in the scen
fore and after it in Act II, in which the rapid exchanges and c
commentaries create a destabilizing sense of fragmentation. S
ocles' structural and dramatic divisions between episodes, as
as his metrically complex odes, do not survive in Cocteau's v
sion; nor does his long reflection about wisdom at the end of
play, which provides a sense of resolution.
In its original production, the modernist element in
Cocteau's play-the emphasis on the instability of the self, experi-
ence, and viewpoint-found an apt complement in Pablo Pi-
casso's scenery, which created "distance," thus thwarting identi-
fication. Picasso's designs were appropriately concise, as in ancient
drama, consisting of a cool violet-blue backdrop, in the center of
which was an opening surrounded by the painted masks of the
chorus, which comprised, anachronistically, not only men but also
women and children. The costumes by Coco Chanel were in-
tended to be historically accurate, although Cocteau specified that
he wanted them made of heavy Scotch woolens, perhaps to create
the effect of a classical frieze. The part of Antigone went to a
young Greek dancer, who took great pains to enunciate the text
properly. She wore a white plaster mask that managed to convey
antiquity as well as create the impression that she had returned
from the tomb. The play was a success, winning the praise of
prominent modernists such as Ezra Pound, despite the disruptive
20 Oddone Longo, "The Theater of the Polis," in Winkler and Zeitlin (eds.), Nothing to Do
with Dionysis? 10o, I9; commentary in Sophocles, Antigone, 92, 96; James Redfield, "Drama
and Community: Aristophanes and Some of His Rivals," in Winkler and Zeitlin (eds.), Noth-
ing to Do with Dionysis? 326. I thank Glen Bowersock for his insight into the modern vocabu-
lary that Cocteau used and its faithfulness to the meaning of the Sophocles text and to
Heinrich von Staden for pointing out that Sophocles used colloquialisms as well.
shouts of Andr& Breton from the audience and the attack of dis-
gruntled traditionalists.21
HONEGGER'S ANTIGONE Cocteau's triumph was undoubtedly o

factor in Honegger's decision to adapt the play's text. He was als
well aware of the current vogue for antique subjects, and a gre
admirer of Mihaud's innovative setting of Aeschylus' Oresteia an
of Richard Strauss' Elektra (1909). After the censure that he re
ceived from Les Six following the success of Le Roi David (1 921
Honegger adamantly announced his intention to break free of t
constraining traditions of lyric theater, which, in his perceptio
were the result of the libretti, generally based on "the standard an-
ecdote of love." He liked the compression, and startling juxtapos
tions, of Cocteau's text for Antigone, especially the abrupt trans
tions to violence in the dialogue. The text, moreover, afforded
him the challenge of composing for a the fast pace, while keepi
the diction clear and allowing the colloquialisms to relate the sto
to the present. According to Cocteau, "The extreme speed of th
play does not allow the characters to express much and to retra
anything. Naturally, no living characters are hinted at within."2
Honegger did not concur with Cocteau's lack of interest in
character, since he was partially rooted in the German Romant
tradition, which impelled him to bring the characters, with the
shifting perspectives, back to life, even if in a fragmented manner.
Fragmentation, however, was his goal only insofar as Cocteau de
manded music more like Stravinsky and Les Six than that of Ba
or Wagner. Honegger, however, could not help but make refer
ence to tradition, even in articulating his contrary aims. His Wa
nerian point of departure is clear, as is his debt to traditional oper-
atic choral writing; despite his purported iconoclasm, Honegge
love of Wagner, Strauss, and the French Wagnerians is unmistak
able. This trait, together with his technique of declamation, wou
later recommend the work to both Vichy and Nazi authorities, r
21 I thank Bowersock for pointing out the frieze-like effect created by the heavy woo
costumes. On the simplicity of ancient Greek staging, see Erika Simon (trans. C.
Vafopoulou-Richardson), The Ancient Theater (New York, 1982), 20. For the costumes a
Picasso's scenery, see Steegmuller, Cocteau, 297-298; for the attacks on Cocteau, 299-3o0
22 On the music used in ancient drama, see the commentary in Sophocles, Antigone, 1
On Honegger's admiration for the "Greek operas" of Milhaud and Richard Strauss,
Spratt, Music ofArthur Honegger, 93; for Cocteau's and Honegger's comments on the play, 94.
662 | JANE F. FULCHER
gardless of its other, less traditional features. As opposed to mod-

ernist operas like Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1925), which show a
more consistent modernist style, Antigone's eclecticism and weak
authorial voice made it less threatening to the Germans.23
In order to articulate Cocteau's condensed text, Honegger
sought clarity through a vocal line molded to words and avoiding
sustained high notes. But unlike Debussy, Honegger turned not to
the spoken word as a model but to French tragic declamation, as
had Lully, another so-called foreigner in France. Although admir-
ing Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande (1902) as appropriate to Maurice
Maeterlinck's text, Honegger maintained that Cocteau's, with its
speed and brutal action, called for a different kind of delivery. In
Antigone, the vocal lines are largely syllabic and centered in the
middle range, except for points of emphasis-on which the ac-
cents fall and inflections rise in a more Germanic manner.24
Previous analyses of the opera assume that Honegger realized
his stated intention of clarity in declamation and in formal ap-
proach. In his analysis of the work's motifs, Geoffrey Spratt stresses
its symphonic construction, in the Wagnerian manner, pointing
out how the orchestra not only anticipates the action but also pro-
vides background to the story. Yet Spratt and others failed to rec-
ognize fully Honegger's uncharacteristically emphatic, frequent,
and jarring shifts in style, which reveal both Cocteau's pressure
and Honegger's own inner conflicts. Atonal sections, recalling Ar-
nold Schoenberg, intermingle with traditional tonality and styles,
and in some cases with polytonal passages in which the chorus or
orchestra inescapably suggests Stravinsky. Honegger's desire to
employ past styles, and the meanings that they carried, to interpret
the text, without detracting from "modernity," resulted in frag-
mentation and the absence of a readily identifiable composer's
voice. Although this strategy makes the careful motivic structure
and the formal architecture of the work extremely difficult to fol-
low, it effectively, if inadvertently, conveys the quickly shifting
perspectives of Cocteau's condensed text.25
23 See Honegger's preface to the score, Antigone. Tragidie Musicale en 3 Actes (Paris, 1927);
Spratt, Music of Arthur Honegger, 94.
24 Spratt, Music of Arthur Honegger, 129, 13 I1, 132-
25 For Spratt's extensive analysis of the music, see ibid., 94-129. Paul Collaer, Arthur
Honegger: Antigone (Paris, 1928), 12-13. Edward T. Cone, The Composer's Voice (Berkeley,
I974).
Honegger undercut Cocteau's modernism by imbuing

characters with humanity, thus allowing the audience to ide
with them, while still depriving them of consistent motiv
This sense of character is due in part to the otherwise puzz
choice of vocal ranges for them: Crion is a high baritone, alm
tenor, and his son, H~mon, is a low baritone, really a b
Antigone is no sympathetic Greek maiden, or young g
Crbon refers to her, but a majestic "mezzo grave," or contr
Cr6on's wife, Eurydice, is a mezzo, and Antigone's sister, Ism
a soprano.
Of all the characters, Cr6on invites the most empathy in his
transformation from conceited tyrant to tragically broken man.
Honegger's heroic treatment of Crbon, as opposed to that of the
defiant, almost "possessed," Antigone, worked in the opera's favor
in Paris. So did the absence of a moral standpoint and the use of
traditional choruses to anchor the structure through style and
tone. Some of the opera's complexity in perspective derives
from the four voices given to the traditional spokesman for the
chorus---soprano, alto, tenor, and bass-which not only introduce
gender to the mix but also highlight the diversity of the people
that the chorus is supposed to represent.
Honegger's ability to humanize Cocteau's text is most evi-
dent in Antigone's farewell and the scenes that surround it in Act
II. Scene 7 begins with a freely atonal section in which Crbon pro-
nounces his sentence, in emphatic speech-like declamation; the
contralto coryph6e then melodically, and ambiguously, sings of
love (suggesting either family or fianc6e), against the background
of a plaintive saxophone, the tenor coryph~e commenting sadly
on her impending death. In the eighth scene, against a polytonal
background, replete with jazz timbres recalling Les Six, Antigone,
passionately bids farewell to the citizens of her country, which, a
French audience could have understood as sacrifice either in the
name of the Republic or in defiance of it. The soprano coryph
soon enters, hectoring her about disobedience, morality, an
common sense in Sprechstimme (though with a tonal orientation
that offsets Antigone's lyricism. Schoenberg later used a simil
vocal contrast in Moses und Aaron (I932/33).
When Cr6on enters, both reach the height of frenzy
Antigone fully consumed in her soaring lyricism, oblivious to h
declamatory tirade. The commentary that follows from the fo
664 JANE F. FULCHER
coryph6es evokes a traditional operatic ensemble. The coryp

sing polyphonically, but atonally, about the similarity of A
one's plight to that of the sexually desirable Danae, who was
buried alive, impregnated by the golden semen of Jupite
Sophocles' version, this fourth choral ode consists of four m
logical stories that illustrate the power of fate; Cocteau, in r
ing it to only this one, may have intended to suggest sexua
ousy on Cr6on's part. The opera accentuates the enigma
Sophocles' play through textual compression and Honegger's
listic choices.26
THE OPERA'S PRODUCTION The past several decades have taught

that a work's enunciation is by no means a given; it is continually
recreated through various modes of presentation and reception. In
opera, as in all theater, a work's different historical or material
instantiations, together with its performative context, help to de-
termine the boundaries of possible, or plausible, interpretation.
Moreover, in a polysemic genre like opera-with visual compo-
nents, text, and music-what exactly constitutes "the text" is not
always obvious. Opera studies often refer to the libretto as the
text, assuming it to be synonymous with the meaning that the
composer sought to translate into music. However, close exami-
nation of the enunciative mechanisms of a work like Antigone, par-
ticularly in different contexts and productions, demonstrates that
meaning emerges in a complex, interactive manner. Just as in an-
cient Greek drama, the "author" (which in Antigone is just as am-
biguous a concept as "text") was, as Longo put it, "but one of the
mechanisms of dramatic production." So too is a work's modern-
ism: In opera, the modernist style of a written text might not coin-
cide with that of the music or the staging, as was the case in the
first production of Antigone.27
The production in Brussels, like that of Cocteau's play,
sought to produce an effect of estrangement, preventing emo-
tional identification with the characters. The sets were reductive,
26 I am indebted to von Staden's insight concerning the effect of dividing the spokesman
for the chorus into four different voices and to Bowersock for drawing the implications of the
Danae myth to my attention.
27 Fulcher, "Re-inscribing Opera in History and Politics, "Journal of the American Musicologi-
cal Society, LIV (2ooi), 147; idem, "The Concert as Political Propaganda in France and the
Control of Performative Context," Musical Quarterly, LXXXII (1998), 41-67; Longo, "The-
ater of the Polis," 14.
largely simple blocks, and the characters, in historically in

costumes, struck poses resembling those on Greek vases. Bu
music worked against this impression. The incoherent utte
ostensibly perplexed the audience, ensuring that the Brussel
duction would not be well received.28
Critics of the Brussel's staging who sought a thoroughgoin
modernism that completely rejected tradition and those who e
pected a deeply human drama on familiar terms found it impos
ble to agree on a verdict. Some praised the work's innovativ
treatment of an antique form, notwithstanding perceived inad
quacies in its staging. Later, in Paris, however, the same grudgi
observation would not be necessary, since the more appropriat
staging there reinforced the modernist elements inadvertently
present in the music, giving it a resonant experiential context.2
Cocteau, who, like Honegger, grew close to collaborationist
circles in occupied Paris, and who was chastened by the rece
controversy over his play, Les Parents terribles (1929), took control
of Antigone's Parisian staging himself. In fact, he probably play
the decisive role in the Opera's re-consideration of the work, se
ing the occasion provided by the festivities surroundin
Honegger's fiftieth birthday in 1942 to express his desire that t
opera, which he proclaimed to be Honegger's chef-d'oeuvr
finally be granted a long-awaited performance in Paris. Neithe
the Germans nor Vichy could afford to object. By that time, aft
the return of Pierre Laval to power, Vichy had abandoned t
"national revolution" and become more fascist (detaining Frenc
as well as foreign Jews in Paris at the Vlodrome d'hiver to aw
deportation). To temper the blow, both the Germans and Frenc
sought association with the prestige of the theatrical classic
Vichy, paradoxically, construed ancient theater as furthering
waning moral program and communal ideal. Opera, once mor
became the primary locus of its attempt to conciliate the Fren
and compromise with the Germans."3
28 On the original production in Brussels, see Paul Collaer, Arthur Honegger, 17. On t
cool but polite reception in Brussels and the more positive response in Essen (in Janua
1928), see Marcel Delannoy, Honegger (Geneva, 1986), II3-
29 For reviews of the work in 1927 and 1928, see Spratt, Music ofArthur Honegger, 133-I1
142-143; Collaer, Arthur Honegger, 28-29; Delannoy, Honegger, I 13.
30 For Cocteau's article in praise of Honegger, see Jean Cocteau, "Six-Cinquant
L'Information musicale, 76, June 26, 1942. Also paying tribute to Honegger in this issue w
Paul Valbry, Alfred Cortot, Jacques Chailley, and Lifar. On Vichy's increasing fascism,
666 JANE F. FULCHER
Conveniently, Honegger cut across the fine line of volu

and involuntary collaboration; although close to French fasc
had supporters at Vichy, such as Gaston Bergery, P6tain's am
dor first to the Soviet Union and then to Turkey. In th
1930s, when Bergery's "frontisme" movement was shifting
center left to right, Honegger publicly lent his name and co
tions in support of Bergery's journal, La Fliche. He was als
to prominent technocratic planners in Vichy circles, havin
tributed to Philippe Lamour's journal, Plans, during th
I930S.31
All of these conditions favored Antigone's performance, as did
the more realistic decor, costumes, and staging that Cocteau de-
vised, probably in an attempt to pass the German censors and win
official approbation. The theme of this incarnation was not purity
or estrangement (anthithetical to Nazism), nor authoritarian con-
trol, but horror and terror. The stress fell, accordingly, on emo-
tional identification, despite the shifting perspectives. This ap-
proach worked more effectively with Honegger's attempt to bring
the characters to life, in part through a dialogue with past styles,
which made the past appear more immediate and complex.
For the scenery, Cocteau designed a series of dark, closely in-
terlocking blocks with menacing black holes as windows to sug-
gest buildings in a city, employing a vertigenous, incoherent per-
spective that recalled late medieval paintings. However, to invoke
a sense of familiarity, he included an article of laundry hanging in
the courtyard to the side-a decorative but eerie touch. He
perched the four coryph~es on the roof looking down. The main
characters sometimes appeared on the roof (most dramatically,
Antigone between two guards) or starkly outlined against the
Sapiro, La Guerre, 55-56. On the inherent fascist component in Vichy, see Paxton, Vichy
France, 233; on the ideological implications of Laval's return to power, 309-326. Added, Le
Theatre dans les annees Vichy, 335, 90, 33, 23 I, 232. Added notes a shift in public opinion as a
result of the round-up of the Jews in Paris during the summer of 1942 and the banning ofJews
from theaters starting in July 1942. On Vichy's internment of foreign and French Jews, see
Peschanski, "Exclusion, pershcution, rhpression," 215-218, 220, which states that Vichy be-
came as repressive and violent as the Germans in the course of I943. When Vichy officials
were forced to select those hostages to be executed in response to resistance, they chose pri-
marily Jews and Communists.
3I On Bergery and La Fliche, see Paxton, Vichy France, 243; Philippe Burrin, La Derive
fasciste: Doriot, Deat, Bergery (Paris, 1986), 223-238. Honegger "Du cinema sonore i la
musique rhelle," Plans, January 1931, 74-78.
THE TRIUMPH OF HONEGGER'S ANTIGONE I 667
black windows and doors. As photographs of the production at-
test, the gestures were large and tragic, suggesting not only the act-
ing of antiquity but also complementing Honegger's return to
French tragic declamation to highlight the text.32
The chorus, in stylized, sculptural drapery that managed to
catch the light in a lurid manner, appeared either together or di-
vided symmetrically to left and right, sometimes facing the audi-
ence directly, again in the antique manner. Cocteau designed
highly expressive costumes of strongly contrasting light and dark
colors-Antigone in dark tones, with a long thin white scarf that
suggested a rope and Cr6on in dark colors as well. But Crion's
clothing included an odd detail. Though neither a foreigner, a
barbarian, nor a freed slave, he wore a Phrygian bonnet. The pre-
cedent for this choice was the 1828 premiere of Daniel Auber and
Eugene Scribe's La Muette de Portici, in which Masaniello, the
leader of Naples' first popular revolt, donned this same cap, thus
creating an association with the French revolutionaries of 1789, as
well as with Marianne, the female effigy of the new Republic,
who wore it. Within the context of Auber and Scribe's opera,
which does not indicate whether Masaniello is a tragically crushed
hero or a crazed revolutionary fanatic, the cap left the meaning of
the revolution unresolved.33
Audiences could read Crbon's character, as they could
Masaniello's, in their own way, which suited the authorities in
Vichy France as it had those in the late Bourbon Restoration.
Vichy, which abhorred the Revolution but kept the "Marseil-
laise" as its official anthem, and even allowed busts of Marianne to
remain in city halls, wanted to appear tolerant to avoid protest.
Yet, significantly, in Antigone's French production, the most men-
acing costumes were those of the guards. Their helmets trailed
long, spiked, brightly colored plumes, the shadows of which re-
sembled knives. In the most harrowing scene, the guards pull
Antigone, defiant to the end, into her tomb, represented by a trap
door in the center of the stage. Again, whether Antigone dies in
32 Fifty-nine clear and detailed photographs of the 1943 Paris production are available in
Sc./Ph. Antigone, Honegger, 1943, Biblioth~que de l'Op&ra, Bibliothbque Nationale de
France.
33 See Fulcher, The Nation's Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art (New
York, 1987), 34-35, for a discussion of Masaniello's costume.
668 JANE F. FULCHER
honor or in disdain of the Republic-whether she is its victi

its symbol (as her costume arguably suggests)-is not obvious
MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM, AND ANTIGONE'S PLACE IN CUL-
TURAL HISTORY Why did the authorities condone Antigon

why did Parisian audiences flock to its ten performance
question revolves around the vexed issue of modernism and
lation to "modernity" and the "avant-garde." As Wohl rece
pointed out, some scholars construe modernism, from a dis
as not one style but as a set of"epochal styles." Similarly, Ly
posits the diversity of modern movements (in which Lyotar
cludes postmodernism) as continuities despite the distincti
each strain. One element of continuity that Wohl and other
identified is the fear of instability and the disruption of p
identity. As he notes, certain British and American moder
such as Pound and Eliot, paradoxically expressed antimoder
conservative values through modernist literary forms to "
shape to an otherwise formless and chaotic modernity that t
ened the integrity of the self." They appeared to reject past
as a way to construct a pure new order that could restore a
ent form or shape to experience within the present.35
A different attitude, however, emerged from the trau
World War I. Movements such as dadaism and surrealism, w
did not fall under the "modernist" umbrella, rejected this n
der, no longer resisting the past and prepared to accept ano
and ambiguities. Thus, as Wohl explains, scholars trace a lin
these movements to the reintegration of the past characteri
postmodern art. Schorske incisively articulated how moder
and postmodernism diverged: Modernism defines itself
equivocally "against" the past, or as "detached from it in a
autonomous cultural space." Postmodernism finds uses f
lected elements of the past, "but even as it consigns modern
34 On the censorship process and its anomalies in Vichy, see Added, Le Thkatre
ann&es Vichy, 52; on German censorship versus that ofVichy, 42, 43, 98-99; on how
mans kept Vichy from stifling dramatic art, 90; on Laval's censorship of anything qu
entente with Germany, 45.
35 Robert Wohl, "Heart of Darkness: Modernism and Its Historians,"Journal of Mod
tory, LXXIV (2oo2), 594, 581-582, 584, 586. On Frangois Lyotard's conceptualizatio
postmodern and its intellectual context, see Margaret E. Gray, Postmodern Proust (Philad
1992), 3-4.
the past, it reaffirms its own rupture from history as a contin

process, as the platform for its own intellectual history."36
Calinescu observed that "perspectivism" also serves as a
of continuity and change, predominantly psychological
modernist phase and narrative in its postmodern one. Both
oppose authority, but the narrative opposition extends
modernists' ideal of a utopian reason, which contributed to
saster of two world wars. Calinescu located two modernisms. The
later version, an "antimodern" attitude, emerged with Worl
War I, and eventually developed into postmodernism, rejectin
the first one's more optimistic tone, as well as its singularly nega
tive image of the past. For Lyotard, modernism contains both "
fear and desire for an absent sublime"; hence, the postmoder
strain, its menacing twin, "recognizes that 'unpresentable' silence
by modernism." Moreover, postmodernism questions the concep
of unity, or the valuation of the part only via the whole, in effe
subverting a sense of "authorship" and consciously leaving ten-
sions unresolved. One modernism, then, is socially progressive, ra
tionalistic, and technological, whereas the other is "culturally crit
cal and self-critical, bent on demystifying the basic values of th
first. "37
Honegger, although drawn to the first kind of modernism,
with his love of fast trains, technology, and cinema, still found
comfort in the past, which, together with Cocteau's text and
urgings, led him toward the second, newer strain in Antigone. Al-
though his goal was by no means postmodern, the terrifying or
sublime and uncontrollable effect produced through the interac-
tion of music and text, together with the changes in production
that Cocteau effected in Paris, led the work close to this result.
THE OPERA'S CRITICAL RECEPTION The moral ambiguity and the

apparent absence of authorial perspective in Honegger's opera
seemed true to experience, despite the approbation of collabora-
tionists. In fact, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, in the collaborationist
Nouvelle revue franyaise, overtly advocated the complete abandon-
ment of an omniscient observer. To him, the absence of a privi-
36 Wohl, "Heart of Darkness," 589-590; Carl E. Schorske, Thinking With History: Explora-
tions in the Passage to Modernism (Princeton, I998), 3-4.
37 Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch,
Postmodernism (Durham, I987), 3l01, 276-277, 312, 265; Gray, Postmodern Proust, 5.
670 JANE F. FULCHER
leged narrative center-the very trait for which the Sec

pire had prosecuted Gustave Flaubert for Madame Bovar
aptly served the profascist cause. For the public, it may
lowed room for people to think for themselves, free fro
logic propaganda, but for French fascists and for Vichy
nessed explicitly in Drieu La Rochelle's literary criticism
as implicitly in the numerous discussions of Honegger's
in major journals-it endorsed the envelopment of in
into the new collectivity.38
Evaluations of Honegger's opera in a heavily censo
highly influential, press reflected not only reviewers' partic
sights but also journals' editorial positions. Although far
ple attended the cinema than went to plays or operas, th
of what constituted great French art remained central t
pride and identity, and people were eager to read about
reviewers avoided direct interpretation of the story, b
Ho~r&e was an exception. His earlier review of Antigo
opening in Brussels had been favorable, though guarded
review in the Vichy-approved L'Information musicale, h
was thoroughly sanguine, lamenting the long delay of th
premiere. He particularly lauded Cocteau's text, and h
Crbon, not the rebellious Antigone, as worthy of empa
though by no means a hero. He noted the opera's ability
the audience along at so brisk a pace with an organic po
parable to that in the work of Vincent Van Gogh.39
Hoar&e also accentuated the novelty of Honegger's tr
of the chorus, particularly the chorus to Bacchus, which
"Dionysian frenzy" without resorting to the traditiona
"tumult." What impressed Ho&r6e, and other critics
Honegger's setting of this ode as a classical prayer, in an
ately Bach-like manner, but his use of traditional acade
niques that were in harmony with Vichy's values.
Whereas Ho&r6e spoke from the Vichy-approved
tive, Coeuroy, writing in Je suis partout, a journal emp
pro-Nazi since the late 1930s, represented the collaborat
Long a supporter of both Honegger and German music,
was predictably enthusiastic, echoing Ho6r~e's lament a
38 On Drieu La Rochelle, see Sapiro, La Guerre, 235-236. On the trial of F
dame Bovary, see Dominick LaCapra, Madame Bovary on Trial (Ithaca, 1982).
39 See Hobree's review of Antigone in L'Information musicale, February. 5, 1
THE TRIUMPH OF HONEGGER'S ANTIGONE 67I
long wait for the opera to hit Paris. He described Antigone as a "re-
forming innovation" in musical theater. In his view, Honegger-
notwithstanding his Swiss origin and a declamatory style ostensibly
different from that of Debussy or Ravel-belonged to the purest
French tradition, the "trag6die en musique," which he traced to
the Florentine Lully and to the Germanic Gluck, in deference to
the Europeanist bias of the collaborationist press.40
Coeuroy conceded, however, that the work was unsettling to
listeners, noting in particular its "polytonal aggressivity," which
clashed with then-current conservative taste for calmer, more spir-
itual expression. In its reversion to an earlier modernist approach,
Antigone may have been out of date to some extent, but Coeury
saw its complex, even contradictory, aesthetic approach as clearly
ahead of its time. Accurate as Coeuroy was about Antigone's tim-
ing, he wrongly predicted that the opera would become one of
the dozen masterpieces considered responsible for the renewal of
lyric drama. Critics tended to concentrate on the interaction of the
opera's various musical styles with the decor and staging to shape
the message. No one aspect of the production took precedence or
appeared decadent to them. An opera of the avant-garde twenties
was, in this case, not a problem for the Germans in Vichy France
(though Germany had tried unsuccessfully to ban experimental
works), or for the French, who did not see fit to condemn
Honegger for his neoclassicism, his atonality, or his jazz influence.
Egk, a composer favored by the Germans (Joseph Goebbels,
no less) and an outright spokesman for the Nazi perspective, con-
curred with Coeuroy, praising Antigone for its terrifying, morally
disorienting effect. His review appeared in Comoedia, the leading
theatrical journal in France, by then under the control of the Ger-
man Institute; its most prominent regular contributor on music
was none other than Honegger. Egk's own opera, based on Hen-
rik Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1867), which the Germans prevailed on
Rouch6 to stage, was, like Honegger's, stylistically eclectic, in-
cluding pastiches of polkas, cancans, tangos, Strauss waltzes, and
even polytonal and atonal sections, though in the context of polit-
ical parody. Egk's eclectic approach allowed him to include types
of music no longer condoned but still popular with audiences, un-
40 Coeuroy, "L'Antigone d'Honegger," Je suis partout, April, 14, 1943. On this journal, see
Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat, Je suis partout 1930-1944: Les Maurrassiens devant la tentationfasciste
(Paris, 1973); Ory, Les Collaborateurs,168-200.
672 | JANE F. FULCHER
der the pretext of representing the qualities of moral decline. Stri-

dent dissonance served a similar expressive purpose for him as for
Honegger, but he cautiously framed it with more conventional to-
nality and long lyrical lines, in a Wagnerian orchestral setting, thus
sounding modemrn but remaining rooted in tradition.41
Egk singled out Antigone among the best contemporary musi-
cal theater for its ability to project the movements of the human
soul. Undoubtedly aware, like Hoirbe, that the Nazis (and Vichy)
did not like modernist "alienation," Egk chose to emphasize the
humanity of Honegger's characters. He also commended the op-
era's construction, based on several short motifs, erudite but never
seeming too cerebral. Even if other elements appealed to him, and
to Nazi officials, more, Egk felt obliged to pay tribute to the Ger-
man tradition of "craft."
To Egk, Cocteau's text had the merit of conveying the ele-
mental nature of the tragedy's passion and its inherent menace,
thus breaking the "bourgeois" mold of a domesticated or miscon-
strued antiquity. Cocteau overwhelmed the audience with terror
the better to arrive at catharsis, the text neither masking nor dis-
torting antiquity. The precision of the language, often incorporat-
ing colloquial diction, made the feelings and shifting perspectives
of the characters transparent. Egk similarly lauded Cocteau's de-
cor, costumes, and lighting, which seemed to imprison the audi-
ence in a universe where the dark threat of tragedy was omnipres-
ent. Like his Nazi patrons, for whom he undoubtedly spoke, Egk
equated the audience's catharsis in the end with a reconciliation to
own their fate.
Did audiences experience catharsis by reconciling to the hor-
rors of the moment, or did they prefer reassurance and a clear
moral message? Did the work offer resignation as the only option,
or did it elicit a broader reflection on wisdom, identity, and indi-
41 "Antigone entendue et vue par Werner Egk," Comoedia, February 6, 1943. On Egk's pro-
tection by Goebbels, see Michael Kater, The Twisted Muse (New York, 1997), 182-186. Sig-
nificantly, as Porcile, Les Conflits, 37, points out, Honegger had praised the recording ofEgk's
ballet,Joan de Zarissa, in Comoedia. On the ambiguities concerning what Germany allowed in
opera, see Michael Walter, Hitler in der Oper: Deutsches Musikleben 1919-1945 (Stuttgart, 1995).
On Comoedia, see Sapiro, La Guerre, 38, 42-43. Partly because of his relationship with
Comoedia, and partly because of his participation in ceremonies commemorating Mozart's
death in Vienna that were construed as Nazi propaganda, Honegger was excluded from a Pa-
risian network of Resistance musicians in March I944. See Guy Krivopissko and Daniel
Virieux, "Musiciens: une profession en r~sistance?" in Chimanes (ed.), La Vie musicale sous
Vichy, 338, 347.
vidual moral agency? As Added suggested, theatrical aud

filled halls to capacity during this era because they had a ne
appropriate the real world through art. According to Jean-P
Rioux, the role of culture was changing in a psychological
under the conditions of material scarcity, instability, and iso
when "l'art pour l'art" no longer seemed possible. Although
ences were still predominantly middle-class, collaborators or
porters of Vichy were not the only people to attend the op
some members of the audience were not so enamored of their ma-
terial and political conditions. Those still loyal to P&tain could cer-
tainly find affirmation of their values in the opera, but many oth-
ers, in the light of civil strife, recent German defeats, and the
prospect of hard choices, understood the opera in a way that
justified disengagement from Vichy.42
Vichy's political and cultural conciliations and contradictions left

space for creative liberty, inadvertently fostering an international
modernist style. During the brief German occupation, when the
French and the Germans engaged in increasing competition over
cultural policies, anomalies like Antigone could appear on the scene
to confound doctrine. While the Germans sought to appease the
French with their cultural liberalism or to encourage decadence as
a way to weaken French resolve, the French similarly sought to
appear liberal to a public increasingly distant from, and suspicious
of, Vichy's goals.43
In perpetual contradiction with its own rhetoric, Vichy si-
multaneously supported both safe, traditional works and works
like Antigone that subverted its images and smug moral certainties.
All great art has the capacity to upset the establishment, but unlike
42 Added, "L'Euphorie th~atrale dans Paris occup6," in Rioux (ed.), La Vie culturelle ous
Vichy, 343, 237. On catharsis, see Longo, "Theater of the Polis," 19. On the experience of art
in this period, see Rioux, "Ambivalences en rouge et bleu: Les pratiques culturelles frangais
pendant les annbesnoires," in idem (ed.), La Vie culturelle sous Vichy, 41-60o. On dissident audi-
ences, see Poulenc (ed. Chim~nes), Correspondance, 532-534. In a personal interview at the In-
stitute for Advanced Study, Oleg Grabar, who was a courier for a small resistance paper
published at his lyc~e and attended the Paris Opera as an adolescent, revealed that his family,
who worked to help Jews and other persecuted friends, found refuge in culture, including
music and opera, not a reinforcement of Vichy's ideals.
43 For a discussion of creativity and innovation during Vichy, see Henry Rousso, "Vichy:
Politique, id~ologie, et culture," in Rioux (ed.), La Vie culturelle sous Vichy, I9-39. On the
Nazi goal of encouraging French cultural decadence, see Bertrand-Dorlbac, L'Art de la defaite,
19.
674 JANE F. FULCHER
Wagner's operas, Antigone did not ultimately succumb to

propaganda and imagery. It opened uncharted territory, to be
an increasingly restive public, well aware that the Allies were
ing progress in the war. Antigone illuminates not only the re
of Vichy culture, but also the innovations that resulted fro
deep internal conflicts, paving the way for other challenging
ernist endeavors. Postwar "new music" did not emerge li
phoenix from the ashes; its seeds were sown during France's
est years.44
Antigone fulfilled one of ancient drama's primary purposes; it
enacted contradictions in order to heighten public consciousness.
Like Sophocles' play, Honegger's Antigone furthered collective
knowledge by becoming-in the words that Redfield used to de-
scribe ancient tragedy-"a kind of mirror in which the audience
could read its shifting condition."45
44 The Germans were undergoing gradual defeat at Stalingrad between November 1942
and February I943. On Vichy's inability to control the state theaters in Paris, despite its mas-
sive intervention, see Added, Le Theatre dans les annees Vichy, 89-90.
45 Redfield, "Drama and Community," 326.

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French Identity in Flux: The Triumph of Honegger's "Antigone"

Author(s): Jane F. Fulcher

French Identity in Flux: The Triumph of

? 200oo6 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary

Vichy sought to use opera as a means to appease its ow

VICHY, GERMAN OCCUPATION, AND FRENCH TRADITION

In Paxton's view, contrary to Philippe P~tain's later claims,

technocrats and bureaucrats, who radically switched

sort were amenable to the cultures of different nations.

6 Fulcher, French Cultural Politics, 32-33.

disseminate the propaganda of a Franco-German alliance.

9 Schwartz, "La Musique," 93-95, 10o4. On Franco-German cooperation in music

Not surprisingly, the Paris Op6ra consistently played

In 1941, the Secr6taire g6nbral des Beaux-Arts wrot

HONEGGER AND COCTEAU One plausible explanation for Honeg-

As Honegger put it, he arrived in Paris enamored of Max

(Univ. of California, 2000); Fershault, "Programmes, commentaires, critiques," L'Information

Faur6, Debussy, d'Indy, and Alb6ric Magnard. Stylistic t

Cocteau's play, Antigone, which premiered at Dullin's Theat

COCTEAU'S ANTIGONE With his Antigone, Cocteau sought t

16 On Cocteau's feeling of betrayal, see Harding, Ox on the Roof 127-129; on Poulenc's,

Crbon, as the tragic hero, is the "architect of his own down-

lower social status. Above all, he intensified the manner in w

HONEGGER'S ANTIGONE Cocteau's triumph was undoubtedly o

gardless of its other, less traditional features. As opposed to mod-

Honegger undercut Cocteau's modernism by imbuing

coryph6es evokes a traditional operatic ensemble. The coryp

THE OPERA'S PRODUCTION The past several decades have taught

largely simple blocks, and the characters, in historically in

Conveniently, Honegger cut across the fine line of volu

honor or in disdain of the Republic-whether she is its victi

MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM, AND ANTIGONE'S PLACE IN CUL-

TURAL HISTORY Why did the authorities condone Antigon

the past, it reaffirms its own rupture from history as a contin

THE OPERA'S CRITICAL RECEPTION The moral ambiguity and the

leged narrative center-the very trait for which the Sec

der the pretext of representing the qualities of moral decline. Stri-

vidual moral agency? As Added suggested, theatrical aud

Vichy's political and cultural conciliations and contradictions left

Wagner's operas, Antigone did not ultimately succumb to

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