Haas’s Charlatan:

Holocaust Premonition of Harlequinade?

Timeline

Charlatan is the title of an opera by Pavel Haas, a Czechoslovak composer of

Jewish origin and a student of Leoš Janáček. The opera was composed at a time
of rising Nazi power in Germany, where Jews were bound by the so-called
Nuremberg Laws since 1935. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia in
1939, Haas was subject to repression himself. His music was banned from
performance in 1939, he was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Terezín
in 1941 and finally killed in Auschwitz in 1944.

Charlatan as holocaust Premonition

Because of this historical background, Charlatan has been interpreted

predominantly through the context of WW2, Holocaust, music in concentration
camps, etc. Illustrative of this approach is Michael Beckerman’s article entitled
‘Haas’s Charlatan and the Play of Premonitions’. Beckerman argues that the
opera, despite its overtly unproblematic character, raises [I QUOTE] ‘a series
of fundamental questions about the nature of the modern world’ [UNQUOTE]
in a similar way as the works of Georg Büchner or Franz Kafka do. Beckerman
goes on to make the following observations:

In The Charlatan a crowd robotically chants “Long Live Pustrpalk!” as if

aping a Nazi spectacle; a miller is burned alive in his mill while crowds
sing outside; Pustrpalk kills a Catholic priest, probably unintentionally;
[a] vanished village [...] presages the Nazi liquidation of Lidice in 1942.
The framing of these events raises potent questions about Haas’s state of
mind during the opera’s composition, and the figure of the Charlatan
looms large as the most enigmatic aspect of the work.
Pitfalls of interpretation

I fully support Beckerman’s argument inasmuch as Haas’s Charlatan is a

statement about the disturbing position of a human subject in the modern world.
However, I argue that Beckerman’s literal mapping between events in the opera
and historical events is problematic and potentially misleading. My main point
of criticism is that the significance of particular sections of a literary or dramatic
text must be interpreted with respect to the conventions of the genre they
represent. Taking passages of text at face value results in a reading which is
imprecise at best.

In other words, I argue that a plausible reading of Charlatan must take

into account the variety of different literary genres, models and traditions,
which this work conflates. While Charlatan uses the archetypes of commedia
dell’arte, the main character’s affinity to the figures of Don Juan and Doctor
Faustus link it to the genre of morality play. To make matters more
complicated, the opera abides with elements of the fantastic, the uncanny and
the grotesque, which suggest the context of Gothic fiction, Symbolism and
Expressionism.

Commedia dell’arte: A Prelude to the Tragedy

The elements of commedia prevail throughout the first act, suggesting little
about the tragic turns to come.

Quackery and Folk Theatre

Haas’s libretto is based on a novel by the German writer Josef Winckler,

depicting the adventures of Johann Andreas Eisenbart, a highly successful
travelling quack doctor touring Germany with a troupe of up to 100 comedians
in the late 17th and early 18th century. Probably due to political reasons, Haas
replaced the name of the main character (Eisenbart) with Pustrpalk, drawing on
an anonymous 14th century Czech play Mastičkář which literally translates as
‘the quack ointment seller’.

These two sources are surprisingly closely linked: Eisenbart’s company

was a late product of a long-lasting commercial alliance between quacks and
comedians, which dates back to the time of Mastičkář. Moreover, the tradition
of folk theatre, which links Mastičkář, commedia dell’arte and Eisenbart’s
company, was exploited by 20th-century avant-garde theatre, of which Haas’s
opera is representative.

Cast and Act 1

The main cast Charlatan includes Pustrpalk, the quack, his wife Rozina, his
mistress Amarantha, who is married to the Professor, and Pustrpalk’s chief
adversary Jochimus, who is a monk or priest and a friend of Professor’s.

Complete with a troupe of comedians, this cast displays all of the

fundamental comic archetypes of commedia dell’arte: the pair of a hen-pecked
husband and a bossy wife, the duo of master and servant, and the omnipresent
motive of love triangle.

The plot of the first act is correspondingly light-hearted. The opera starts
with a fairground performance of Pustrpalk and his troupe. Among others, a
young lady, Amarantha, comes to seek Pustrpalk’s help. Her apparent
immobility is ‘cured’ when she is forced by Pustrpalk to sit skirtless in a basket
full of nettle. She is persuaded rather easily to abandon her husband and join the
troupe. Jochimus, who happens to witness the scene, is enraged and decides to
bring Pustrpalk to justice. The following scene is merely a comic episode based
on a jealousy-propelled fight between Amarantha and Pustrpalk’s wife Rozina.

Pustrpalk’s multi-faceted character

Most of the characters remain ‘flat’ throughout the opera. Pustrpalk, however,
oscillates between several character types in rapid succession. On the stage, he
is a Harlequin, as an impresario of the troupe, he is a Master of his servants,
when confronted with his bossy wife, he is a hen-pecked Dottore and when left
alone with Amarantha, he becomes a Pierrot.

‘Pustrpalk Lunaire’: The Fantastic World of Pierrot’s Sexuality

The image of Pustrpalk as Pierrot is most potently presented at the beginning of

the second act. This representation, however, takes us away from the domain of
authentic commedia to the realm of fantastic imagination similar to that
depicted in the poems by Albert Giraud, which Arnold Schoenberg set to music
in Pierrot Lunaire.

The Windmill Scene (1)

In contrast with the broad daylight of the first act, the second act opens with a
nocturnal horror-like scene, situated at the site of a village destroyed at a past
war. All that’s left is an old windmill.

Pustrpalk tells Amarantha about the ‘mad old miller’ who still lives in the
windmill, attended in his illness by his ‘young beautiful niece’. The tone of the
conversation changes when, according to Haas’s stage directions, the moon
emerges from behind the clouds. Pustrpalk gets very agitated and makes a
passionate declaration of love to Amarantha. Amarantha gives a coquettish
response and leaves.

Left alone, Pustrpalk overhears two comedians scheming to rob him of

his money and takes them by surprise. The robbers are caught and … rewarded.
Surprisingly, Pustrpalk divides all of his money between the comedians.

A drinking spree ensues. However, the merrymaking takes a tragic turn

when the miller, apparently irritated by the uproar, throws a lantern among the
comedians and kills one of them. The crowd responds by setting the windmill
on fire and sings cheerfully as the miller dies in the flames. Pustrpalk flees with
Amarantha and Bakalář, his closest companion.
The Windmill Scene (2)

I’m sure you wonder: How does this make sense? I argue that the principles of
logic and rationality are suspended here in a way typical of the literary fantastic.
I further argue that this course of events is motivated by Pustrpalk’s inner
conflict between his position as an individualist, whose migrant life within the
troupe affords him independence of social structures, and a ‘Pierrot’ who
desires the union with his beloved woman.

The tension between Amarantha and the comedians is articulated in the

dialogue of the plotters, who explicitly voice the concern that Pustrpalk will run
away with Amarantha, and disperse the company.

Pustrpalk’s decision to share his money with the troupe then seems as an
attempt to reinforce the sense of (male) companionship. However, Pustrpalk is
apparently very anxious about all this. Although he treats the comedians with a
barrel of wine, he repeatedly urges them to keep quiet, so that ‘the woman’
would not find out about what he’s done.

The Woman, Freud, and the Uncanny

The fantastic setting, the theme of Pierrot’s erotic fascination with the
Columbine, and Pustrpalk’s anxiety concerning ‘the woman’ leads me almost
inevitably to invoke Freud’s notion of ‘the uncanny’. The phenomenon of the
uncanny occurs when something that should feel familiar and safe is somehow
twisted and feels strange and menacing instead.

Freud lists several typical attributes of uncanny imagery. One of them is

‘involuntary repetition’. Freud gives the example of being lost in the forest and
coming again and again to the same spot, distinguished by a particular
landmark.

Pustrpalk on his travels happens to arrive at a place, distinguished by the

windmill, which is familiar to him. He knows there used to be a village – a
place connoted with home and safety – but now it is a burnt site associated with
death and madness.

Another typical feature is the presence of ‘doubles’. Isn’t it striking that

we should learn about the ‘mad old miller’ and his ‘young beautiful niece’
during a conversation between Pustrpalk and Amarantha?

Finally, Freud mentions the phenomenon of ‘omnipotence of thoughts’ or

wish fulfilment. After the comedians start partying, Pustrpalk makes three
increasingly anxious attempts to make them silent, all in vain. Does not the
miller fulfil his wish when he kills one of the comedians in his violent irritation?

Bearing in mind that, from a Freudian perspective, the uncanny is rooted

in the ‘repressed awareness of the pleasures of the mother’s body’, I suggest the
following reading of the symbolic significance of this scene:

Sexual symbolism

The burnt village is a symbol of the loss of the mother’s body, the home from
which Pustrpalk is expelled (as his migrant existence seems to confirm) and to
which he seeks to return by the union with another woman.

The windmill is a rather obvious phallic symbol and, correspondingly, the

miller is the impersonation of Pustrpalk’s ego. Consequently, the destruction of
the windmill signifies Pustrpalk’s castration, the effects of which will become
apparent in the two following scenes: he will lose Amarantha first and his
healing powers will fail him shortly afterwards.

Amarantha’s disappearance

Let me tell you the rest of the story. The next scene takes us to the fairground of
the King’s city in the midst of carnival celebrations. Here Amarantha learns
from a merchant about the proverbial manly power of the king who ‘loves
women’ and often ‘hosts up to eight baronesses all night’. Let us hear
Amarantha’s reaction to that:
[audio]

That is the last thing we hear from Amarantha. At the peak of Pustrpalk’s
triumphantly successful performance, the news breaks out that Amarantha has
disappeared. Haas’s libretto states clearly that she was abducted by Jochimus.
However, in Winckler’s novel her disappearance remains a mystery and the
word goes that she was lured away by some attractive courtier. I argue that
Haas’s version preserves a hint of this ambiguity. Amarantha’s enchantment by
the manly power of the king implies Pustrpalk’s lack of such powers.

Villain vs. Saint: Charlatan as Morality Play

This conflict of explanations actually signifies a conflict of genres. Emphasising

the agency of Jochimus, highlights the polarity between Pustrpalk (the ‘villain’)
and Jochimus (the ‘saint’), bringing the opera from the realm of fantastic
subjectivism to the genre of morality play.

Crime and punishment

Now, Pustrpalk seems to have every reason to take revenge on Jochimus. And
he does get a chance. In the following scene, Jochimus, now mortally ill, comes
to seek Pustrpalk’s help.

Pustrpalk behaves professionally and proceeds to operate without

hesitation. He seems to do his best to save the patient – but Jochimus dies. A
hasty investigation ensues. The local doctor asserts Pustrpalk’s murderous
intentions and the latter is forced to flee in disgrace.

The punishment for this ‘crime’ comes shortly. Set in a tavern, the last
scene sees Pustrpalk wretched and drunk, unable to recognise the members of
his former company. He boasts about his fame in front of three poor students
and finally sets out to sing a self-satirical ballad about his previous successes.
His old associates gradually join in, until the whole tavern sings along.
However, at the peak of this communal merrymaking Pustrpalk staggers and
falls, hallucinating that the ghost of Jochimus is coming to ‘strangle’ him.
Pleading the others to ‘pray for his wretched soul’, he dies.

Literary Figures of Transgression

The story of Don Juan – a typical morality play subject – is clearly the template
behind this scene. But wait, Pustrpalk did seduce a woman, but he certainly did
not murder her father-like ‘protector’ Jochimus in cold blood. So why should he
go to hell?

In fact, I would argue that Jochimus’s moral authority is hard to justify.

In Winckler’s novel he is clearly depicted as the embodiment of self-righteous
bourgeois morality underpinning the alliance of clerical, professional and social
establishment which is fiercely hostile towards Pustrpalk.

Jochimus is obsessed with his quest to bring Pustrpalk to ‘justice’ and his
hatred for him goes literally beyond grave. When he comes to seek Pustrpalk’s
help, he starts with saying ‘Doctor, forget about all that has happened till now.
I’ve done you wrong.’ But minutes later, when nobody’s around, he murmurs
‘et in puncto ad infernum’ – ‘In a moment in Hell’. Then he produces what
Haas described as ‘diabolic laughter’ and enters Pustrpalk’s tent with a
‘determined smile’. He is not a passive victim but rather a malicious architect of
Pustrpalk’s doom.

There are further parallels with stories of Faust and Don Quijote, which I
have no time to address. Nonetheless, I would like to point out the features these
characters have in common.

Myths of Modern Individualism

Don Juan, Faust and Don Quijote have been described as the ‘Myths of Modern
Individualism’ by Ian Watt. These characters share with each other and with
Pustrpalk the following traits: they all live as solitary nomads outside social
structures and unbound by their moral constrictions; they are alienated from
family members, if they have any, their only close relationship is with a male
servant. Finally, they all display some form of ‘monomania’ which leads them
to transgression and subsequent punishment and failure. As Watt explains,

‘they are completely engaged in their own individual enterprise; they are
defined by whatever they have somehow decided to do or be [… they] all
have an undefined kind of ideal, but do not succeed in reaching it [and
they are] punished for their attempt to realize their aspirations.’

Man vs. Fate: Puppet vs. Master

From this perspective, the relationship between Pustrpalk and Jochimus is that
of a man facing the transcendent power of fate. Whether this power is wise and
just or capricious and malicious is the eternal question of mankind. In any case,
the imbalance of power can be metaphorically described by the relationship
between a puppet and a master.

The Fantastic World of Puppets and Masters

In this theme, many of the threads I have been following so far come together.
Puppets are an essential part of the imagery of the fantastic, they are typically
used in the staging of moralising stories such as that of Faust or Don Juan, and
they were often invoked in the early twentieth century dramatic art, particularly
in conjunction with themes of commedia.

Take for example Stravinsky’s Petrushka, featuring the traditional trio of

Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin – plus their puppet master, often referred to
as ‘charlatan’. The theme of master and puppet was also often used as an
expression of psychological crisis of the human subject; the German
expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is the supreme example. In
Haas’s Charlatan, Pustrpalk is increasingly helpless against the obscure forces
which seem to drive him to his doom. At least in some respect, I argue, he is
becoming a puppet in the hands of Jochimus.
Jochimus as Charlatan

Jochimus takes away from Pustrpalk the two things he cares for most: his
beloved Amarantha and his self-assuredness as a surgeon. Jochimus’s final
appearance has the potential for producing a powerful estrangement effect,
elevating Jochimus to the role of the puppet-master or ‘Charlatan’ who draws
the curtain at the end of his puppet theatre show, similar to that we know from
Petrushka.

The view of Amarantha as Jochimus’s puppet, designed to cast Pustrpalk

into the turmoil of erotic anxiety bears an ‘uncanny’ resemblance to E. T. A.
Hoffmann’s horror story ‘Sandman’, which Freud analysed in his famous 1919
essay and which has since become a prototypical example of its genre. In this
story, the obscure devilish figure of Coppelius makes a young man fall in love
with a mechanical doll, by means of a magic trick, thus bringing upon him
misery, madness, and death.

There is also an intriguing reversal between Haas’s Charlatan and

Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Whereas Petrushka concludes with the image of the
puppet’s triumph over the master, Charlatan leaves us with a rather more
disturbing image of the charlatan’s triumph over his puppet.

Conclusion

This brings me to my conclusion:

Conclusion (1): Historical context

Some of the images and events in the opera can be literally mapped on the ‘real’
events in the surrounding historical context. To Beckerman, the image of the
crowd chanting ‘Long live Pustrpalk’ associated the image of Pustrpalk as the
Nazi Führer. In fact, the manipulation of the masses works both ways. Take for
example the investigation of Jochimus’s death. Here, the public opinion of the
gathered folk is divided until the Physicus, a figure in position of power and
authority, asserts Pustrpalk’s guilt. It is only then that the crowd starts
ominously chanting: ‘To the gallows!’

I believe there are more reasons to regard Pustrpalk as the oppressed

rather than the oppressor. He is a social outcast, facing the alliance of clergy,
professional guilds and civic authorities. Since the middle ages, this was the
position shared by travelling comedians, musicians, quacks, … and Jews.

Conclusion (2): Literary context

Other aspects of the story, however, cannot be related directly to the historical
context. It is neither convincing nor helpful to map the image of a destroyed
village onto the Nazi liquidation of Lidice. These images have profound
meaning of their own, which, however, only emerges when they are regarded
with respect to the conventions of established literary genres. Then it also
becomes apparent that these visions do not testify on ‘Haas’s state of mind
during the opera’s composition’, as Beckerman argues, but rather to Pustrpalk’s
state of mind during his love affair with Amarantha. The self-identification of
the author with his character cannot be automatically assumed.

Conclusion (3): Human Subject vs. the Modern World

My reading of Charlatan is preoccupied with the question: Why? The reasons I

have given for Pustrpalk’s downfall can be divided into two categories.

The more rational explanation is that Pustrpalk’s fate is the result of

social repression. However, there is an irreducible element of moral ambiguity:
Does Pustrpalk receive righteous punishment on the same moral grounds as
Don Juan or Faust, or is he the victim of arrogance and xenophobia of the social
majority and its leading figures?

The other set of reasons I have given belongs to the realm of imagination,
rooted in sexually motivated anxiety and involving all sorts of dark powers,
ghosts, puppets, masters, etc.
 I argue that neither of these two explanations is to be given preference
over the other, since the ambiguity of reading is a necessary result of the
ambiguity of genre. In fact, ambiguity is arguably the most characteristic feature
of Charlatan, one which makes it such a powerful and disturbing statement
about the human condition in the modern world.

Although it is tempting to relate the work specifically to the context

WW2, this approach is only justifiable to a certain extent. To interpret Haas’s
work indiscriminately through the context of Holocaust, Theresienstadt, or
Entartete Kunst means to limit the possibilities of critical interpretation and to
perpetuate the label which the Nazis imposed upon the composer.