Lost Highway

Afterthoughts on Lost Highway

A "Waiting for Godot" of passion and closeness-A test arrangement about futility

Why adapt Lost Highway for music theatre Months after having finished it, I am wondering about this more than at the time I chose the subject.

Besides feeling personally touched, I was fascinated in the first place by the radical way in which Lynch and Grifford dealt with narration as a progressive series of events. The way people cannot escape from a situation, these merciless time warps, which can make you crazy once you get caught in them, were a fundamental compositional challenge. It was the dismantling of a voyeuristic view that overlooks and unifies everything. This different view, which points nowhere as it is a purely aesthetic device, inspired me to think about its possible musical implications. It is a view of something that cannot be expressed in words. This idea is something I feel very close to with regard to music, though not to life. I also found the different registers of the sound colours of language Lynch uses, from whispering to snorting with laughter, suitable for a kind of music theatre as I imagine it: no beginning, no middle, no end; countless inner and outer (architectural and mental) rooms; what is real and what is a phantom; the commonplace alongside the mystical; all forms of human expression from crying to screaming, from laughter to desperation, coexist. All that, as well as the nihil firmum and the existential, inevitable questioning of questionableness, of the basis of human existence, were crucial for my decision to tackle this unsettling subject.

Lynch's immediately and rapidly changing visual and aural perspectives, and the "topic" of metamorphosis (which I have already used in Bählamm's Fest as a symbol for the attempt to break out of one's own and external norms and the search for something new) as a change in life we desire and hope for, were-and still are-so close to me that it didn't even occur to me in the first place that in my aural conception I would have to match a cinematic masterpiece. A masochistic lust for a downfall in which the alternative script of life proves a futile act, even a bad trip, as a musical drama Lost Highway: splintering, breaking and sinking; manifold negations, the coldness of which determine the aesthetic field of tension; the dimensions of a phantasm as hope; the power of costume, which itself leads to misunderstandings. Did I go to Trieste in order to work on this hopelessness, this nuit sans fin, from beginning to end in peace and quiet, to work the disorder of my own existence into the piece as Umberto Saba did

To avoid lapsing into mere representation on stage, following Bresson's warning, it was clear from the start that I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art that deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image. Also, I didn't want a conventional stage setting to inhibit the actors within a constantly changing space of sound and image.

 

Since Valie Export, an artist who I much admire, immediately came to mind when I started to work on the project, the idea of a suture occurred to me, a "seam" that serves to underline the difference between the image of what is happening on stage and the absence of imagery (in other words, the void) on screen-or vice versa, respectively-thus the difference between two forms of perception. The same applies to music played live and music played from a recording, which makes for a certain kind of continuity within heterogeneity. It is not a rigid system, however, since the "seam" may come undone. It is only a method to overcome the menace, the seeming absence of the cause for the anxiety, the phantasm, with the help of the "seam."

It may be a "trick" to cover up the various layers (stage and actors "versus" video projection, narrative fiction "versus" non-narrative fiction, live "versus" recorded material, objective "versus" subjective) and thus to bridge the gap between the different elements. The "seam" serves as a wildcard for an apparently absent cause that creates a sense of the uncanny.

The method I'm interested in is to deconstruct images and sounds/music through a discourse of perception, therefore showing that these images and sounds follow a certain logic and can be manipulated. This may enable us to realise that the phantasms (one of the crucial topics of this piece of music theatre) have a history, or a core. The problem of images and sounds is that they have a metaphoric quality: they are densified complexes of imagination that provide a texture of sounds and images for an entire scenario of threat.

Since Lost Highway offers no hope from beginning to end, the video, together with the sound, is to form a constantly flickering space of sound and imagery.

Although there are not many instructions by the composer-after all, the composer has learned that a piece of music theatre is usually dealt with according to the wishes of those performing it-there is one thing that has to be complied with: the use of video. The reason is this: the "ultimate threat" is created from a point-of-view shot (in the case of Lost Highway, it appears to be generated by the mystery man with a built-in camera eye, who sees everything and thus perhaps records and manipulates everybody and everything including longing and desire); as this shot cannot be clearly attributed to one of the main characters on stage, it evokes the constantly present ghost of a free-ranging view. The video is also intended to adopt the point of view of an impossible subjectivity that cannot be localised within a narrative space.

The videotapes are shown throughout the piece, even if the score indicates a blackout or fade-ins/outs. This does not mean that the video has to be switched off at those points. It remains as a texture (colours and flickering light, indicating something like time standing still or a room without dimensions, rather than real images referring to something in particular).

Since I regard Lost Highway as a test arrangement for a problem concerning human existence, I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty. Therefore the required use of video is not intended to be decoration, but an integrative element of the stage arrangement. Or rather, the videos create the very stage! That is to say: three-dimensional space is created through video screens, gauze and the video projection itself. The videos make for quick changes of place (in the outer and inner spaces), as well as for the spaces of wish, desire and anxiety in Fred and Pete's heads. The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable. The videos could be about the "u-topos"-an ideal that is lost but also dreamt of, unattainable. The fade-ins and fade-outs I introduced are supposed to create non-human images which interrupt the story line for a short time. During the visual fade-outs, the acoustic space is expanded (quick cross-fade to all loudspeakers in the room); during the visual fadeins, however, it is contracted (back to the loudspeakers on stage). Since dreams often reveal the true nature of things, it was important to me as a composer to create acoustic images to avoid being dependent on imagery. Various sequences, in the style of radio plays, may help to build up independent images in listeners' minds.

A single scene was changed by Elfriede Jelinek and myself, for its peculiar cinematic quality which can in no way be recreated on stage. This is the sequence showing the car chase on Mulholland Drive and Mr Eddy's subsequent outburst of violence. Mr Eddy/Dick Laurent and the mystery man are different representations of the masks of evil. In this case, Mr Eddy, the porno producer in the guise of a popular social "Mr Clean," does not become really brutal in a physical sense but becomes hurtful and destructive through his use of language. Speaking becomes acting; when a banal act-smoking in a garage-is brought to mind, a discourse of horror develops. The horror of language is created by the repetitions and the fragmentation of language taken from this particular context, in analogy to "I can kill with words." In this scene, the longest in Lost Highway, the emphasis is on the way language can be manipulated for a populist cause and turned into violence. This is why Mr Eddy's/Dick Laurent's throat is cut at the end of the piece-in a way, he is robbed of the power of language.

In the "non-illusionary," real first part, in which the actors only whisper and talk, it can be seen how the relationship of a well-off couple has come to be determined by a lifeless dayto-day routine. Fred, who really loves Renee, gets increasingly unsettled through his fear of losing "possession" of his beloved partner due to his unspoken past. As with Alice later on, she is a fetish who does not show any reaction. Both Renee and Alice are masters of perennial excuses, of pseudoanswers that call for interpretation. These seem to disguise lies. This gives rise to free speculation. This first bleak, enigmatic part is dominated by live electronics all over the room. The audience is, in a way, integrated into the failure of the relationship. The impossibility of eluding the situation, which leads to a constantly present sense of disappointment and in turn results in insecurity, gives rise to impotency and aggression because reality remains in a state of suspense. At the climax of the scene, the desexualisation between Fred and Renee turns into resexualisation through murder. Fred transforms his exclusion from Renee's knowledge and the desperation about the murder of his beloved wife into sad images, phantasms. He takes on the mask of a young, virile man, hoping to be able to start again, in order to break up his wife's coldness with his power, passion, love and carefreeness. Pete succumbs to Alice's apparent undisguised character and passion, because that is what he had been dreaming of. During Alice's ploy and his expectation of closeness, Pete becomes increasingly impatient; at the same time, she gains more and more control over him. He, who is passionately in love, gets instrumentalised by Alice for the solution to her life. This circumstance makes him increasingly speechless since he becomes aware that she has no feelings for him and is only playing with him. His means of seeking a solution by escaping into a phantasm now becomes a horrifying experience indeed, for there is no escape from the cold woman and her silence, which means power. Absolute futility! In that moment when Pete finally realises his alienation from Alice, the soprano part (a high soprano with very little vibrato) receives a metallic change in her voice through live electronics. Alice eludes him with the words, "you will never have me," literally disappearing from stage through a slit in the canvas. The psychic disaster has started all over again. The powerlessness and helplessness, as well as the loss or rather the destruction of the self that results from it, once more lead to murder, caused by a sense of forlornness at facing the incomprehensible: this time in the vastness of a desert, the place of death in Lynch's films.

The unspoken becomes a nightmare; waiting and false hopes take root in every skin particle if open questions are silenced. For if you know precisely what to expect you can be calmer: That, however, was denied to both Fred and Pete. Equality in a relationship, however, is only possible if you try to take each other seriously and to get the other involved. Therefore, the seemingly neutral silence becomes an unbearable demonstration of power over another person. This is what Lost Highway is about.

The vibrant, unstable area between standstill and movement, between the living and the dead and between form and dissolution of form, may put us into a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality. In the end, everything remains a chronicle of violence, love, loss and pain. Perhaps it is exactly this end point that gives us the idea of a different script of life.

Special thanks to:

Markus Noisternig, IEM (Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics) in Graz, David Lynch, Barry Gifford, Elfriede Jelinek, and Slavoj Žižek.

Olga Neuwirth, July 2003

 

Jan Topolski talks to director Natalia Korczakowska before the premiere of Lost Highway at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław (interview of 7 May 2016).

 

How did you come across Olga Neuwirth's Lost Highway, and what were your first impressions

I first heard this opera while looking for a piece to be staged at the Młynarski Hall, the smaller venue of the Grand Theatre - National Opera in Warsaw. I eventually chose Wolfgang Rihm's Jakob Lenz, but Neuwirth's hypnotic music is not easily forgotten. I had the impression that David Lynch's film, with all its atmosphere of mystery and menace, has been translated into sound. What is also really fascinating is the way the composer wittily plays with musical motifs from the film. I realised this was something extraordinary, something that Giorgio Agamben could call a "profanation"-playing with a cult work (Lynch's film is considered as one) on the highest artistic level. I was also tempted by the new possibilities inherent in Lost Highway, related to the electronic transformation of actors' voices-a device still not properly exploited in the music theatre.

 

What is special about this opera, from the musical and dramatic point of view

The libretto by Elfriede Jelinek is in fact an extract from the film's script. It preserves most of the situations and the chronology of events. For the opera director, the greatest difficulty is how to avoid copying and retelling the film. The opera is divided into two parts. The first tells the story of Fred and his partner Renee's bourgeois life, full of concealed obsessions. This part is music theatre. The dialogues from the film have been purged of all unnecessary elements and are presented rhythmically in a manner that resembles ancient Greek drama to some extent. Part two is about the dissociative fugue, that is, the loss of identity under the influence of a trauma. The victims of trauma create an alternative version of themselves, as though they were dreaming their own new self. This part is an opera proper, with arias and musical quotations, for example from Monteverdi. Numerous electroacoustic effects have been superimposed on this simple music-dramatic structure, and the wide palette of electroacoustic colours reflects the existential anxiety of a man entangled in a cobweb of mental drives and illusions.

 

For many people, Lynch's film has a cult status and should not be tampered with...

I will refer once again to the idea of profanation. Profanation aims to restore the possibility of using a given object by getting rid of prohibitions, taboos and fixed meanings, by relating what is most serious to play. A child profanes sanctified objects and it makes the child happy. Every artist is a child, in a sense, and is therefore tempted by the possibilities afforded by profanation. Olga Neuwirth's opera proves that the gesture of profanation can lead to the creation of an independent work, entering into a dialogue with the film and projecting a fascination with the original movie. My staging of her opera is an extension of that gesture, but also a chance to move across the boundaries of art, which seems to be the most interesting aspect of today's theatre. I believe that David Lynch himself is in fact a brilliant child who plays with the world, playing intuition against rationality and the established view of what is permitted and what is not. One only needs to look at his drawings, how they cast a spell on reality by restoring the dimension of mystery, by decomposing reality and making it look unreal.

 

What theatrical concepts were important for your staging of Lost Highway

The essence of Lost Highway is playing with time-this was my intuition from the very start. I imagined the viewers of my adaptation in magic space, where the characters and situations from the film are trapped, as in our memory or in our subconscious. Everything begins with the movement of the camera looking for them, trying to catch them red-handed. The choice of venue was crucial. When I first saw the large stage of the National Forum of Music, then still under construction, I realised it would be ideal for this opera. First and foremost, it allows the theatre to move out of backstage and to explore the boundaries between opera, theatre, film and concert, which is the most important for me in my work on Lost Highway. I treat the theatrical space as a magic space, as an emanation of the protagonist's subconscious-or perhaps of the collective subconscious of all the spectators in the audience. The key concept of our stage design is to construct a labyrinth out of video reflections of that space and make the protagonists walk in that maze. In this way, the space becomes one of the persons of the drama, an image of the already mentioned dissociative fugue-and it becomes alive.

 

How did you select singers and actors for the main roles In what way did you interpret those roles

The most important change is having one actor play both Fred and Pete. This kind of solution is simply more theatrical than cinematic. For this double part I chose Holger Falk, with whom I had already worked twice (he played the lead role in Jakob Lenz, and together we organised a concert performance of Ensemble Modern at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg). Another device I applied was to treat all the porn film industry figures from the libretto as spectators who peep at Fred and Renee's private life. At the end of the film there is a scene in which the guests at Andy's house watch the violent erotic movies they made and played in. But in my adaptation this crew watches Fred and Renee's private life-from the very start of the spectacle down to the scene of Renee's murder, which can be considered as the most important of the successive erotic acts in the story. This looks as if this couple were the protagonists of one of the porn movies watched by Andy's guests. Such a presentation also contains the observation that we all derive certain pleasure from watching scenes of violence, from encroaching on other people's privacy, and from spying on intimate home scenes.

 

What could still surprise you during the premiere What are your expectations

Everything can be a surprise, I hope. All this is conceived as an experiment, which means that the final result cannot be predicted.

 

SYNOPSIS

Fred and Renee's Place

Fred Madison and his wife Renee are at home. The intercom rings, and they hear a man's voice on the intercom (on the TV screen: Fred talking to the microphone), saying: Dick Laurent is dead.

After a moment Renee asks Fred if she could skip his concert that night. The phone rings, but nobody answers it. Fred and Renee find a videocassette that has been planted at their home in an unaddressed envelope. The film shows their residence from the outside. Renee believes it must have been sent by the property protection agency. After an unsuccessful intercourse Fred tells Renee about a nightmare in which he saw her as a stranger with the face of the Mystery Man.

Fred and Renee watch another film from an unknown source. This one shows both of them during the recent intercourse. Renee calls the police and hands the phone to her husband. Two detectives arrive, watch the intimate scenes on the videotape and advise them to start using the alarm system. They ask the couple whether they have a video camera. Fred tells them he prefers to remember things the way he sees them, not necessarily as they really happened.

 

A Party at Andy's

Fred is angry and jealous of Renee, who tries to relieve the tension at home by engaging with Andy's guests. Fred talks to the Mystery Man, who claims they had met before, at the Madisons'. He says he is still there at the moment and asks Fred to call his home number and check for himself. Indeed, the Mystery Man answers the phone.

 

On the Way Home

On the way home Fred asks Renee where she had met Andy, of whom he is jealous. Renee replies evasively that Andy offered her a job some time before, but she claims she does not remember what kind of job he had in mind.

 

The Murder

Fred (alone at home) and Andy's guests (on the stage) watch the last of the anonymous scenes that were mysteriously filmed at the Madison's place. It is the scene of Renee's murder.

 

The Transformation

Fred claims he is innocent, but the judge sentences him to death. In his cell, Fred has a splitting headache, which continues throughout the night. In the morning the guard cannot recognise Fred's face and claims he does not know the person in the cell. Eventually the prison director announces the prisoner's new identity. He turns out to be Pete Dayton, and-as his record is clean-he is released and entrusted to his parents' care.

 

Pete's Parents

Pete ̓s mother and father are worried about their son's strange behaviour. They question his about "that night" and what happened to him then, but he can offer no explanation.

 

At the Garage

Arnie, Pete's boss at the garage, says Mr Eddy has been waiting for his return. Mr Eddy arrives and Pete repairs the engine in his car. Mr Eddy brutally beats up a man who smokes in the garage despite the smoking ban. He says that the world would be a better place if people followed well-established rules. Then he asks Pete whether he likes porn movies, and offers a bonus on their purchase.

The two detectives recognise Mr Eddy as Dick Laurent. Alice-the star of the porn films produced by Mr Eddy-enters the stage.

 

Alice

Alice and Pete are alone. They become intimate-the kind of relation that Fred and Renee could not achieve for a long time.

 

The Warning

Mr Eddy threatens Pete with a gun. He says he loves Alice more than his life and that if he learns she has betrayed him, he will kill her lover in a brutal and perverse manner.

 

At the Starlight Motel

Alice tells Pete they should run away together. To do this, she suggests they should rob the man who directs porn films for Mr Eddy. The man's name is Andy. Alice tells Pete how she met Andy-resuming Renee's story from the first part of the opera. Fred begins to have reminiscences of the past, and the headaches return.

 

Mr Eddy Calls Pete

Parents tell Pete that a stranger is calling him. Pete answers Mr Eddy's call. Mr Eddy wants him to talk to his friend. We hear the voice of the Mystery Man: We have met before, haven't we At your place. The Mystery Man tells the parable of the convicts from the East.

 

At Andy's Place

Andy has sex with Alice. On the screen in his living room-where Pete lies in wait-we see a looped fragment of a porn film starring Alice. Pete fights with Andy and kills him. He then has a vision of himself walking down a hotel corridor. A couple copulates in one of the rooms. The woman is all covered in blood, and she looks like Renee.

 

Journey by Car. in the Desert

Alice takes Pete to the desert, where they are supposed to meet a man who will pay them in cash for the things stolen from Andy's house. After their last intimate contact, they part and Alice says: You will never have me, never! Alice disappears inside a cabin, and Pete becomes Fred Madison again.

 

Inside the Cabin

Fred enters the Mystery Man's space. The Mystery Man first tries to oppose him, but eventually succumbs.

 

At Andy's Place

The detectives find Andy's body and Pete's fingerprints in the victim's flat.

Andy's guests gather in his flat to watch violent porn. The guests include Renee, Andy and Mr Eddy.

The Mystery Man and Fred cut Mr Eddy's throat.

 

Epilogue

Fred says to the microphone: Dick Laurent is dead. On the screen we see him wandering in some unidentified space like that from the Mystery Man's parable.