司马勤

这次，我们来谈谈艺术作品中的“不死之身”这个话题。125年前，吸血鬼德古拉伯爵（Count Dracula）在文学历史的长河中诞生，至今他还是十分活跃。去年，这位吸血僵尸在英国广播电视台（BBC）的迷你剧集中以主角身份出现；上个月，他更是在圣达菲歌剧院（Santa Fe Opera）的一部新歌剧中“重生”。

可是，以上两次“重现”都不是你平常熟悉的公爵。英国广播电视台的监制史蒂芬·莫法特（Steven Moffat）与编剧马克·盖特利斯（Mark Gatliss）将“酷不列颠”（Cool Britannia，是媒体用来描绘1990年代英国文化界繁荣景象的用词）风格注入布拉姆·斯托克（Bram Stoker）的经典小说，就跟十年前他们把亚瑟·柯南·道尔（Arthur Conan Doyle）的《福尔摩斯》（Sherlock）翻新“变酷”如出一辙。在圣达菲，约翰·科里利亚诺（John Corigliano）与马克·阿达莫（Mark Adamo）也在他俩曾取得成功的创作手法上再接再厉——换句话说，把两个看起来毫不相干的概念糅合在一起，静观它们碰撞出来的火花。此次他们合作的歌剧《呐喊之主》（The Lord of Cries）的萌芽，源于阿达莫留意到斯托克的小说与古希腊欧里庇得斯（Euripides）的剧作《酒神的女祭司们》（The Bacchae）有相似之处。

确实，有些人真的这样想，认为吸血鬼这个主题对于歌剧这样严肃的艺术形式来说太轻浮了。说实在的，这个项目的确令我联想到《傲慢与偏见与僵尸》（Pride and Prejudice and Zombies）。可惜的是，这本跨门类大杂烩小说（后来更是拍成电影）的喜剧效果到头来并不尽如人意。《呐喊之主》的作曲科里利亚诺已经囊获了美国作曲家可以赢得的所有大奖（除了艾美奖以外他统统榜上有名）；阿达莫同样拥有着卓越的艺术成就，同时担任编剧兼作曲，作品备受赞誉。因此，这部新歌剧显然不只是一个宣传噱头，也不是基于一部青少年迷上的畅销小说的创作。它值得认真严肃地对待——我采取了与观赏其他歌剧同样的方法，就是事前做好功课。

过去几个月，我在清理自己孩提时代的书房时，恰好找到这些原始资料——不只是《德古拉》，还有十几本属于不同系列的19世纪哥特式小说，更有1970年代恐怖电影改编的小说集以及研究不同年代不同文化中吸血鬼传说的社会历史文献。莫法特与盖特利斯的电视剧提醒了我，于是又找来劳伦·埃斯特尔曼（Loren Estleman）创作的《嗜血公爵历险记》（Adventures of the Sanguinary Count）——那是一本描述德古拉遇上福尔摩斯的小说。这些书籍的外壳因为时间久远，大部分都已体无完肤，可是那本《酒神的女祭司们》的书脊却犹如新书一样。

尽管只属于青少年文学的品位，这些在老家发现的藏书却让我对《呐喊之主》有了更深的理解。故事别出心裁的主轴硬把德古拉与古希腊酒神狄俄尼索斯（Dionysus）扯在一起。本来以为很荒谬，但我错了：从匈牙利学者加布里埃尔·罗尼（Gabriel Roney）引述荷马（Homer）史诗《奥德赛漂流记》（Odyssey）的文章里，我才得知奥德修斯在人世与冥界之间游荡时遇上了亡灵，那些亡灵只能在饮血之后才有能量开口说话。古代作家界定鬼魂与女巫时都有些含混不清，但那些亡灵的特质听上去有点像吸血鬼。

不久之前，《纽约客》（New Yorker）的乐评人亚里斯·罗斯（Alex Ross）列出了寥寥可数的几部“吸血鬼歌剧”目录：首部——1812年的《吸血鬼》（I Vampiri）为意大利作曲家西尔维斯特罗·帕尔马（Silvestro Palma）之作——比斯托克出版的小说早了85年；以1999年由菲利普·格拉斯（Philip Glass）为托德·勃朗宁（Tod Browning）执导的1931年黑白电影《德古拉》新编的配乐而告终。罗斯的总结是：科里利亚诺与阿达莫合作的歌剧“在这个领域里差不多没有对手”。

阿达莫可能会坚持，他的剧本根本算不上是吸血僵尸的故事。德古拉这个名字在剧本里几乎没有提及，编剧把斯托克故事的叙事情节做了很大的改动。但是从宏观上来说，我最近研究的“吸血僵尸文献”里，让我看清楚改编工作需要留意的事项。

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我们先谈谈莫法特和盖特利斯。他们制作的《福尔摩斯》十分成功，但《德古拉》却令人失望。原因何在？19世纪的类型小说水平参差不齐。柯南·道尔笔下那位侦探人物，是经过4部小说以及56则短篇故事慢慢提炼出来的，因此，任何添加（或现代化版本）都有可能被视为第57则故事。《德古拉》的背景则截然不同：那是一本结构精密的小说，里面的细节在过去百多年来吓怕了不少读者。莫法特和盖特利斯最大的错误，就是搞不清“圣典”（canon）與“圣经”（scripture）的区别。我们经常会拿圣典出来进行重新评估；但若是你想改动圣经的内容？那肯定会碰壁！

有趣的是，使我另眼相看的其中一个案例，是埃斯特尔曼的小说（《嗜血公爵历险记》的副题是“福尔摩斯对抗德古拉”）。斯特尔曼没有改动斯托克故事里任何情节，他所补充的是德古拉在伦敦的短暂日子里的遭遇。这部小说所带出的幽默效果源自不同行文风格的碰撞。斯托克笔下的人物说话时往往自高自大，会用上夸张的维多利亚式的华丽辞藻；而福尔摩斯与华生两人的对话，则具有柯南·道尔式的冷静和理性。福尔摩斯跟乔纳森·哈克（Jonathan Harker）见面时，屡次劝告他要冷静下来、梳理好眼前的事实。

让我们回到新歌剧《呐喊之主》吧。阿达莫没有像莫法特和盖特利斯那样把故事移植至现代，也没有用更新的现代文化触觉替换历史细节。事实上，他把目光投向过去。相比吸血鬼小说，欧里庇得斯的《酒神的女祭司们》在歌剧范畴里存在了相当长的一段时间，成绩可见一斑。三位风格迥异的作曲家曾套用《酒神》的故事（无论是原著还是进行了改编）撰写歌剧：卡罗尔·西曼诺夫斯基（Karol Szymanowski）的《罗杰尔王》（King Roger，1924）；汉斯·维尔纳·亨策（Hans Werner Henze）的《酒神的女祭司们》（The Bassarids，1965）；还有哈里·帕奇（Harry Partch）的《法院公园的启示》（Revelation in the Courthouse Park，1960）。这些作品都没有纳入经典剧目范畴，所以阿达莫在两方面占上优势：故事情节大家都熟悉；没有任何教条牵制编剧。所以，他的任务就是先把《德古拉》小说整个叙事的骨干拆散，然后重新拼起那些光秃秃的“骨头”（可以这么说），以适应欧里庇得斯的故事轮廓。

這就是为什么在斯托克小说里担任精神病院驻院医生的约翰·苏厄德博士（Dr. John Seward），现在被提升为精神病院院长（还有，苏厄德的父亲本是伦敦市长；当父亲突然去世后，儿子成了只缺少正式名分的市长）。露西·韦斯特拉（Lucy Westenra）本来是苏厄德毕生最爱，在歌剧里却成为哈克夫人，因而精简了斯托克原著里露西未婚夫亚瑟与乔纳森夫人米娜两个角色（在希腊戏剧中，除了弗洛伊德式的“本我”以外，不能容纳人格理论的其他元素）。因为底比斯（Thebes）的国王潘休斯（Pentheus）不承认狄俄尼索斯为神，狄俄尼索斯于是设了个死亡陷阱给他。在维多利亚时期的伦敦，酒神再现（歌剧剧本里只描述他为“陌生人”），将矛头对准了苏厄德医生，因为苏厄德不承认他为那个地方（精神病院的前身是个修道院）的合法主人。乔纳森·哈克与范海辛教授（Van Helsing）——在改编自斯托克小说的各个作品版本里，他们都是推动剧情发展的重要人物——两人的戏份删减了，只提供旁白或背景历史。歌剧结尾（与最终寓意）跟欧里庇得斯的作品最为接近，令人毛骨悚然，性别角色发生了明显的逆转：为了与怪物搏斗，苏厄德最终自己也变成了怪物。

因为以上提到的各点，我十分同情那些冀望吸血僵尸能有多点戏份的粉丝群。熟悉原始资料未必是优势，除非你愿意接纳阿达莫的游戏规则。在《呐喊之主》里，神秘的陌生人乘搭一艘名为“赛墨勒”（Semele）的船只，这刚好就是酒神母亲的名字。斯托克小说里的船名是德墨忒尔（Demeter），一个完全不同的母亲形象。我发现阿达莫为酒神其中一个随从取名阿加埃（Agave），于是立刻翻查书籍，确定那正是底比斯国王潘休斯母亲的名字，而不是编剧故意起了捉弄之意，找来圣达菲本土酿酒植物龙舌兰（agave）来命名。

然而，歌剧里最重要的元素仍然是音乐。科里利亚诺为阿达莫剧本谱写的音乐，就像一个充满自信的声响世界。乐队一开始听起来十分单薄，伴奏演唱旋律时只用了一件乐器（为了模仿古希腊时期诵唱的效果）。到了狂欢作乐的段落，科里利亚诺营造的气氛就像他当年为肯·罗素（Ken Russell）的电影《变形博士》（Altered States）配乐中最著名的“幻觉”场景那样。歌剧里的主导动机很少用于特定的角色，而是用于反复出现的情感状态。科里利亚诺此前的歌剧《凡尔赛的幽灵》（The Ghosts of Versailles）里，创作了故意调侃罗西尼与莫扎特风格的旋律。在这里，抒情的乐段显然保留了他自己的个人风格。

但问题是，第一幕时长差不多90分钟。这一两年来，大部分的歌剧整场演出都不超过90分钟。可以缩短一点吗？也许可以。但高男高音安东尼·罗斯·科斯坦佐（Anthony Roth Costanzo）扮演的酒神简直精彩绝伦。我猜，就算他只是在台上诵读电话簿，大家也必定被他迷住。这个歌剧架构令我想起惠士钊（美国作曲家Stewart Wallace的中文名）的《接骨师之女》（The Bonesetters Daughter）：谭恩美撰写的剧本借用了中国戏曲叙事手法，把故事里全部的叙述性资料都铺垫在第一幕里。这样，第二幕就可以轻松顺畅地发展。

绝大部分的歌剧制作都希望带领观众进入“暂时信以为真”的状态。可是导演詹姆斯·达拉（James Darragh）故意逆向而行。舞台上简约的布景让我们流畅地游走于古希腊与维多利亚时代的伦敦。这个制作拒绝让我们沉浸于故事，直至歌剧的最后一刻：阿达莫的故事到达无可避免的高潮，科里利亚诺的音乐也到达最震撼的一刻。

Talk about undead. For a guy whose literary life began 125 years ago， Count Dracula shows no signs of slowing down. Last year， he got his own BBC miniseries； last month， he was again revived in a new work at Santa Fe Opera.

In neither case， though， was it the Count you thought you knew. For the BBC， showrunner Steven Moffat and writer Mark Gatliss gave Bram Stokers novel the same “Cool Britannia” treatment they gave to Arthur Conan Doyle a decade ago in Sherlock. In Santa Fe， John Corigliano and Mark Adamo likewise returned to methods that worked well for each of them before—namely， rubbing two seemingly disparate ideas together and pondering the sparks. Their opera， The Lord of Cries， first took root when Adamo noticed similarities between Stokers novel and Euripides play The Bacchae.

Some might—indeed， some did—find vampires too frivolous a subject for a serious art form like opera. And to be honest， the project does have a whiff of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies， a genre-crossing mashup novel （later a film） that was never as funny as it shouldve been. But Corigliano has garnered nearly every award （except an Emmy） that an American composer can win. Adamo has an impressive track record of his own， writing both music and texts for a well-regarded body of stage works. So this was clearly not a publicity stunt， or juvenile fan fiction. It deserved to be taken seriously—and like most operas， called for some research beforehand.

As it happens， Id recently stumbled onto much of that source material while cleaning out my childhood library—not just Dracula， but dozens of vampirerelated volumes from collections of 19th-century gothic fiction to novelizations of 1970s horror films to social histories of vampire myths through different centuries and cultures. Bringing Moffat and Gatliss to mind， I even found a copy of Loren Estlemans Adventures of the Sanguinary Count， where Dracula meets Sherlock Holmes. Most of these books were falling apart at the seams； strangely enough， my copy of The Bacchae was barely cracked.

Adolescent literary tastes notwithstanding， my new discoveries did rather put The Lord of Cries in context. The main conceit of the show， linking Dracula to the ancient Greek god Dionysus， seemed much less ridiculous after reading Hungarian scholar Gabriel Roneys citations from Homers Odyssey， where in Limbo （the space between the living world and Hades） Odysseus encountered spirits of the dead who could only summon the energy to speak after drinking blood. The ancient writers were a bit vague in codifying their various ghosts and witches， but those spirits sound a bit like vampires to me.

More recently， New Yorker critic Alex Ross itemized the admittedly limited genre of “vampire opera，”starting with Silvestro Palmas I Vampiri from 1812—some 85 years before Stokers novel was published—and ending with Philip Glasss 1999 score for Tod Brownings film Dracula from 1931. Corigliano and Adamos opera， he concluded， “has the field mostly to itself.”

Adamo would probably argue that his libretto isnt really a vampire story at all. Draculas name is barely spoken， and the text plays quite fast and loose with Stokers narrative details. But looking at the bigger picture， the “vampire corpus” Ive encountered lately does offer some clear pointers regarding adaptations about what works and what doesnt.

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Lets start with Moffat and Gatliss， who scored brilliantly with Sherlock and delivered a rather disappointing Dracula. The reason？ Not all 19th-century genre fiction is created equal. Conan Doyles detective evolved over the course of four novels and 56 stories， so any addition （or modernization） could potentially fall in line as the 57th. Dracula， on the other hand， is a carefully constructed novel whose details have haunted readers for generations. Moffat and Gatlisss biggest mistake was in confusing canon with scripture. Canons frequently come up for re-evaluation； you mess with scripture at your own risk.

Funnily enough， one of the more charming examples came from Estlemans novel （subtitled “Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula”）， which changed none of Stokers details but rather filled the gaps during Draculas documented time in London. Much humor was derived from clashing prose styles. Stokers characters would speak in high-blown Victorian verbiage while Holmes and Watson conversed in Conan Doyles cool， analytical prose. Most of Holmess interactions with Jonathan Harker involved telling him to calm down and stick to the facts.

But back to Lord of Cries. Unlike Moffat and Gatliss， Adamo didnt try to update the story， or simply replace period details and sensibilities with modern equivalents. In fact， he went backward. Compared to vampire fiction， Euripides Bacchae has a longer operatic track record， having been set （or adapted） by composers as diverse as Karol Szymanowski （King Roger， 1924）， Hans Werner Henze （The Bassarids， 1965） and Harry Partch （Revelation in the Courthouse Park， 1960）. None of these have made it into the standard repertory， so Adamo has the best of both worlds： general audience familiarity with the basic story， with no inhibiting doctrine. For him， it was all a matter of pulling apart Draculas narrative skeleton and rearranging the bare bones （so to speak） to fit Euripidess story arc.

Which is why Dr. John Seward， originally a staff psychiatrist in Stokers novel， is now upgraded to head of the asylum （and after the death of his father，the actual mayor of London， he becomes “the mayor of London in all but name”）. Or how Lucy Westenra， the love of Sewards life， comes to be married to Jonathan Harker， eliminating both Lucys fiancéArthur and Jonathans wife Mina from Stokers story （Greek drama having little room for Freudian character-types beyond the id）. Much as Dionysus devises a violent death for the Theban king Pentheus for failing to acknowledge his divinity， his incarnation in Victorian London （referred to mainly as The Stranger） targets Seward for failing to recognize his legal claim on Carfax Asylum， formerly Carfax Abbey. Harker and Van Helsing—driving forces in most Stoker adaptations—are reduced mostly to offering commentary or backstory. The ending （and message） remains chillingly close to Euripides， with a telling reversal of gender roles： by going after the monster， Seward becomes the monster himself.

After all this， I do have some sympathy for listeners who expected to see more of their favorite vampire. Familiarity with the source material was not always an asset here， unless you were ready to play Adamos game. In Lord of Cries， the mysterious Stranger arrives in London on a ship called the Semele， which was the name of Dionysuss mother （Stoker had named it the Demeter， a quite different mother figure）. Seeing that Adamo had one of Dionysuss followers named Agave， I actually checked to see if this was really the name of Pentheuss mother and not some clever Santa Fe reference to the local plant they use to make tequila.

In opera， though， what really matters is the music， and here Corigliano fashioned Adamos retooled storyline into an assured world unto itself. Starting from a thin orchestral texture， with voices often accompanied by single instruments （mimicking the style of classical Greek oration）， Corigliano builds into full-on Bacchanals reminiscent of the hallucination scene in his score to Ken Russells film Altered States. Various leitmotifs are used less for specific characters than for recurring emotional states， and unlike his previous opera The Ghosts of Versailles， where Coriglianos music often veered into cheeky riffs on Rossini and Mozart， his lyrical voice here remained clearly his own.

The problem， though， is that the first act ran nearly 90 minutes， more than most opera performances these days in their entirety. Could it have been shorter？ Probably， but finding places to cut wasnt exactly helped by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo， whose breathtaking performance as Dionysus wouldve kept listeners riveted if hes been reading the phonebook. Structurally， it reminded me of Stewart Wallaces opera The Bonesetters Daughter， where Amy Tans libretto drew similar influences from Chinese opera， squeezing in most of the expository material before intermission and letting the conclusion unfold smoothly in Act II.

Where most opera tries to suspend disbelief， the director James Darragh seemed to aim for the reverse. With a minimalist setting seamlessly morphing between ancient Greece and Victorian London， the production practically cultivated incredulity until the final moments， when Adamos story reaches an inevitable climax and Coriglianos score packs its final punch.