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Space Opera (novel)
Encyclopedia
Space Opera is a novel by the American science fiction
author Jack Vance
, first published in 1965
(New York: Pyramid Books).
' sequence are undoubtedly mistaken; the term does not occur in it and the book was written some years earlier than those which clearly form that series. It also seems to take place at a much earlier stage of human expansion through the galaxy.) It is one of his most frankly comic tales, though in fact almost all his books contain subversively comedic elements.
The comedy begins with the title. The term ‘space opera
’ is understood in SF circles to connote a colourful interstellar adventure, a clash of good and evil with all the panoply and apparatus of spacefleets and galactic empire
s. Vance’s novel is instead about an opera
company touring in outer space. (He has stated that the title was not his choice: he was commissioned to write a book with that title, and this was what he came up with.)
, aboard the ship as a stowaway.
Like many of Vance’s works, the novel is a picaresque; Gondar has his own reasons for not returning to Rlaru, and diverts the company half way round the galaxy, with various adventures or humiliations occurring on the different planets they touch down on. (There are some similarities with Vance’s later novel Showboat World, which has a travelling company presenting performances of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
to generally uncomprehending audiences along an immense river on a distant planet.) Over the course of the voyage, the company stages several celebrated works, such as Beethoven
’s Fidelio
, Mozart
’s The Magic Flute and Così fan tutte
, Rossini
’s The Barber of Seville
, and Wagner
’s Tristan und Isolde
and Flying Dutchman
. These are performed before various human or non-human audiences, the libretti and costumes sometimes having to be adapted to become understandable to alien cultures. On the whole, due to such cultural disparities, their reception is far from that expected by Dame Isabel: on a penal colony planet, for instance, the performances are made the cover for a jail-break; on a planet inhabited by a race priding themselves on their musical talents, the productions are vetted by an artistic inspector and the company is fined for every unresolved dissonance in the scores performed; on still another, the performance is mistaken for a trade exhibition and the aliens attempt to buy some of the singers.
While Gondar is confined to his cabin, apparently insane, Madoc Roswyn induces his deputy to take the ship to the distant planet Yan. It emerges that her remote ancestors inhabited a land now sunk beneath the Bay of Biscay
whose people had colonized that planet and there developed a high civilization. (Here we detect the germ of Vance’s later major fantasy trilogy Lyonesse, the heroine of whose third volume is named Madouc.) A group had returned to Earth thousands of years later, but their spacecraft was destroyed and they were forced to settle in Wales, ever intending to return to Yan. Madoc is their last descendant. She is disappointed by what she finds: Yan’s cities are dust and its folk have reverted to barbarism, hiding in the forests. Although the company present Debussy's Pelléas to try to establish communication with the unseen inhabitants, they barely escape with their lives.
Eventually the voyage ends at Rlaru. It turns out that Gondar had abducted the Ninth Company from the planet; he is suitably punished by the natives, who demonstrate a capacity to creatively manipulate illusion and environment far beyond anything their Earth visitors can achieve. They listen to several operas with mounting boredom, but are utterly entranced by an impromptu washboard
jazz band
formed by some members of the crew, which has been a source of annoyance to the opera-lovers throughout the voyage. (Vance was at one time a jazz musician.) Dame Isabel returns to Earth, chastened but determined not to admit it; Roger marries Madoc Roswyn and begins writing a book describing the voyage.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
, first published in 1965
1965 in literature
The year 1965 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron*J. G. Ballard - The Drought*Ray Bradbury - The Vintage Bradbury*John Brunner...
(New York: Pyramid Books).
Plot introduction
This is a ‘stand-alone’ work, not part of any of Vance's numerous novel sequences, though the human-colonized stellar regions in which it takes place are similar to that of many of his stories. (Attempts to classify it as a member of Vance’s ‘Gaean ReachGaean Reach
The Gaean Reach is the setting of an informal grouping of a number of science fiction books by author Jack Vance ....
' sequence are undoubtedly mistaken; the term does not occur in it and the book was written some years earlier than those which clearly form that series. It also seems to take place at a much earlier stage of human expansion through the galaxy.) It is one of his most frankly comic tales, though in fact almost all his books contain subversively comedic elements.
The comedy begins with the title. The term ‘space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
’ is understood in SF circles to connote a colourful interstellar adventure, a clash of good and evil with all the panoply and apparatus of spacefleets and galactic empire
Galactic empire
Galactic empires are a common trope used in science fiction and science fantasy, particularly in space opera. Many authors have either used a galaxy-spanning empire as background, or written about the growth or decline of such an empire...
s. Vance’s novel is instead about an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company touring in outer space. (He has stated that the title was not his choice: he was commissioned to write a book with that title, and this was what he came up with.)
Plot summary
On Earth, audiences are entranced by the musical entertainments staged by an alien troupe, the Ninth Company of the planet Rlaru. Dame Isabel Grayce (one of a long line of formidable society matrons in Vance’s works) has sponsored the entertainments; when the Ninth Company disappears without a trace, she proposes to recoup her losses and bring culture to the wastes of space by forming an opera company which Adolph Gondar (the discoverer of Rlaru) will pilot on a tour of suitable planets, with Rlaru as ultimate destination. Singers, orchestra, a British conductor (Sir Henry Rixon) are engaged; an argumentative critic, Bernard Bickel, who thinks the Ninth Company were fakes, is hired as musical consultant. Dame Isabel’s indolent and aptly named nephew Roger Wool (one of a long line of Vancian put-upon nephews) tags along also, smuggling his new girlfriend Madoc Roswyn, who claims to be a simple girl from Merioneth in WalesWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, aboard the ship as a stowaway.
Like many of Vance’s works, the novel is a picaresque; Gondar has his own reasons for not returning to Rlaru, and diverts the company half way round the galaxy, with various adventures or humiliations occurring on the different planets they touch down on. (There are some similarities with Vance’s later novel Showboat World, which has a travelling company presenting performances of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
to generally uncomprehending audiences along an immense river on a distant planet.) Over the course of the voyage, the company stages several celebrated works, such as Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
’s Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
’s The Magic Flute and Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
’s The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, and Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
’s Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
and Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
. These are performed before various human or non-human audiences, the libretti and costumes sometimes having to be adapted to become understandable to alien cultures. On the whole, due to such cultural disparities, their reception is far from that expected by Dame Isabel: on a penal colony planet, for instance, the performances are made the cover for a jail-break; on a planet inhabited by a race priding themselves on their musical talents, the productions are vetted by an artistic inspector and the company is fined for every unresolved dissonance in the scores performed; on still another, the performance is mistaken for a trade exhibition and the aliens attempt to buy some of the singers.
While Gondar is confined to his cabin, apparently insane, Madoc Roswyn induces his deputy to take the ship to the distant planet Yan. It emerges that her remote ancestors inhabited a land now sunk beneath the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
whose people had colonized that planet and there developed a high civilization. (Here we detect the germ of Vance’s later major fantasy trilogy Lyonesse, the heroine of whose third volume is named Madouc.) A group had returned to Earth thousands of years later, but their spacecraft was destroyed and they were forced to settle in Wales, ever intending to return to Yan. Madoc is their last descendant. She is disappointed by what she finds: Yan’s cities are dust and its folk have reverted to barbarism, hiding in the forests. Although the company present Debussy's Pelléas to try to establish communication with the unseen inhabitants, they barely escape with their lives.
Eventually the voyage ends at Rlaru. It turns out that Gondar had abducted the Ninth Company from the planet; he is suitably punished by the natives, who demonstrate a capacity to creatively manipulate illusion and environment far beyond anything their Earth visitors can achieve. They listen to several operas with mounting boredom, but are utterly entranced by an impromptu washboard
Washboard
A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
jazz band
Jazz band
A jazz band is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands usually consist of a rhythm section and a horn section, in the early days often trumpet, trombone, and clarinet with rhythm section of piano, banjo, bass or tuba, and drums.-Eras:SwingDuring the swing era in the mid-twentieth...
formed by some members of the crew, which has been a source of annoyance to the opera-lovers throughout the voyage. (Vance was at one time a jazz musician.) Dame Isabel returns to Earth, chastened but determined not to admit it; Roger marries Madoc Roswyn and begins writing a book describing the voyage.