Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Staging, Interpreting, Speaking Through Euripides: Ingmar Bergman Directs the Bacchae

  • Article
  • Published:
International Journal of the Classical Tradition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Notes

  1. For a survey of these three productions and their critical reception as well as for an interview with Bergman on Backanterna, see H. Sjögren, Lek och raseri: Ingmar Bergmans teater 1938-2002, Stockholm 2002, 343-355 and 356-358.

  2. M. Schottenius, ‘Dionysos på Fårö’, Expressen, 21 May 1996, 5; Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 355.

  3. K. Rygg, ‘The Metamorphosis of The Bacchae: from Ancient Rites to TV Opera’, Nordic Theatre Studies 11 (1998), 47-69; G. Iversen, ‘The Terrible Encounter with a God: The Bacchae as Rite and Liturgical Drama in Ingmar Bergman’s Staging’, Nordic Theatre Studies 11 (1998), 70-83; M. Koskinen, ‘Art as Cult: Bergman’s Riten and Backanterna’, Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek 20 (1999), 133-147; E. Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae as Opera, Television Opera, and Stage Play’, in id., Bergman’s Muses. Aesthetic Versatility in Film, Theatre, Television and Radio, Jefferson NC–London 2003, 91-100. See also E. Törnqvist, ‘A Life in the Theater. Intertextuality in Ingmar Bergman’s Efter repetitionen’, Scandinavian Studies 73 (2001), 25-42 (reprinted with slight modifications in E. Törnqvist, ‘Bergman’s After the Rehearsal on Television’, in id., Bergman’s Muses. Aesthetic Versatility in Film, Theatre, Television and Radio, Jefferson NC–London 2003, 117-128).

  4. Koskinen, ‘Art as Cult’ (n. 3 above); Törnqvist, ‘A Life in the Theater’ (n. 3 above), 36-39. See also L. Zern, ‘Mer teater än opera’, Expressen, 3 November 1991, 5.

  5. Indeed, according to Zern, ‘Mer teater än opera’ (n. 4 above), at the end Dionysus ‘hovers like a Prospero high above the stage, something in between a clown and a director’.

  6. Cf. Törnqvist, ‘A Life in the Theater’ (n. 3 above), 38, and Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 96: ‘In Dionysus and Pentheus, almost identical in appearance, Bergman in the last instance illustrates the symbiotic split inside each human being between the rational and the instinctive’.

  7. Cf. Schottenius, ‘Dionysos på Fårö’ (n. 2 above). This Dionysus-like obsession with women seems to underline also this comment by Bergman: ‘Sometimes I think I’m a lesbian man obsessed by other women. Sometimes I think that my sensations and feelings are extremely feminine and very little of the manly sort’, quoted by M. Koskinen, Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence: Pictures in the Typewriter, Writings on the Screen, Seattle 2010, 56.

  8. See Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 356-357: ‘The opera was sung, and so the text did not come out the way I wanted it to, despite the fact that we had supertitles at the Opera and it was partly subtitled on TV. It is almost a sacred text to me, and always has been’.

  9. On this difference, see below, n. 103.

  10. With the exception of the French critic F.-M. Victor, ‘Les bacchantes’, Opera International, Paris, January 1992, 38-39, the reviews of the 1991 opera which I could consult are overwhelmingly positive: see C.-G. Åhlén, ‘Bergman har nått målet’, Svenska Dagbladet, 3 November 1991, 1 and 36; T. Carlsson, ‘Operan hoppas på Bergman’, Dagens Nyheter På Stan, 1-8 November 1991, 14; S. Karlsson, ‘Backanterna på scen med storslagna aktörer’, Falu Kuriren, 5 November 1991; C. Lundberg, ‘Här är Demonen på Operan!’, Expressen, 3 November 1991, 4; Zern, ‘Mer teater än opera’ (n. 4 above) (Sweden); H. Finch, ‘Backanterna, Royal Opera, Stockholm’, The Times, 15 November 1991; A. Porter, ‘Bergman’s Bacchae’, Financial Times, 15 November 1991 (UK); A. Porter, ‘Singing The Bacchae’, The New Yorker, 2 December 1991, 151-155; J. H. Sutcliffe, ‘Bergman, Euripides and Opera’, International Herald Tribune, 6 November 1991; E. Redvall, Opera News, April 1992 (US); ‘Totentanz am Telefon’, Der Spiegel 45, 1991, 278-280; W. Sandner, ‘Blut, Schweiß und keine Tränen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 November 1991, 33; S. Feldmann, ‘Donner, Blitz und die Gewalt von Walküren’, Rheinische Post, 29 November 1991; ‘Backanterna, ein Musiktheaterstück von Daniel Börtz nach Euripides’, Opernwelt 2, 1992 (Germany); W. Rosboch, ‘Le Baccanti di Euripide rivisitate da Bergman’, Corriere del Ticino, 4 November 1991 (Switzerland); S. Sablich, ‘Dioniso en travesti’, Il Giornale, 4 November 1991 (Italy); I. Carbajal, ‘Ingmar Bergman lleva por fin a escena la ópera Bacantes’, La Vanguardia, 3 November 1991 (Spain).

  11. The Swedish reviews of the 1993 TV version also praised the show, preferring it even to the 1991 version: L. Aare, ‘Hänförande explosion i bild och ton. TV-tolkningen av Backanterna skapar paradoxal lyckokänsla’, Dagens Nyheter, 10 April 1993; C.-G. Åhlén, ‘Ögonen talar starkast. Bergmans videoversion av Backanterna får nya förtecken’, Svenska Dagbladet, 10 April 1993, 18; C. Lundberg, ‘Gudarna sjunger ut’, Expressen, 9 April 1993, 33. See also Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 351-352.

  12. Bergman claimed that, after having been long troubled with the problem of ‘the silence of God’, he then lost interest in theological problems because towards the end of the 1960s he had become completely agnostic. Cf. I. Bergman, The Magic Lantern. An Autobiography. Translated from Swedish by J. Tate, London 1988, 204. Yet even in subsequent films, which are in fact focused more on human relationships and psychology, theological questions and God-like figures are still heavily present, as shown by R. A. Blake, ‘Ingmar Bergman’s Post-Christian God: Silent, Absent, and Female’, Religion and the Arts 1 (1997), 27-45.

  13. Åhlén, ‘Bergman har nått målet’ (n. 10 above); Karlsson, ‘Backanterna på scen med storslagna aktörer’ (n. 10 above); Feldmann, ‘Donner, Blitz und die Gewalt von Walküren’ (n. 10 above). Cf. also C. Larsén, ‘När backanterna fick sångröst’, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 1 November 1991.

  14. Iversen, ‘The Terrible Encounter with a God’ (n. 3 above) and Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above). While Törnqvist partly anticipates my own interpretation (see below n. 92), Iversen gives a very different reading of Backanterna (in the 1996 version) as a religious play (see below n. 103).

  15. I quote from Carlsson, ‘Operan hoppas på Bergman’ (n. 10 above).

  16. Cf. I. Bergman, Images: My Life in Film, translated from the Swedish by Marianne Ruuth, New York 1994, 175. Cf. also Porter, ‘Bergman’s Bacchae’; Rosboch, ‘Le Baccanti di Euripide rivisitate da Bergman’; Carbajal, ‘Ingmar Bergman’ (all n. 10 above). In Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 343-344, Bergman says they did John Patrick’s The Teahouse of the August Moon (which was staged in 1955) instead. Cf. also B. Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide, Amsterdam 2005, 570-571. Carlsson, ‘Operan hoppas på Bergman’ (n. 10 above), on the other hand, mentions Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, which was staged in Malmö in 1954.

  17. M. Χαρτουλαρη, ‘Τώρα μόνο θέατρο’, ΤΑ ΝΕΑ, 4 November 1986, 12, and Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide (n. 16 above), 768.

  18. In the Ingmar Bergman Archive in Stockholm I consulted his personal copy of the 1987 translation of the Bacchae by Jan Stolpe and Göran O. Eriksson, full of annotations and cuts (D: 121–Script). This working copy is quite similar to the final libretto for the opera, though some passages that were initially cut are restored in the libretto or, vice versa, sometimes the libretto has new cuts.

  19. Cf. Porter, ‘Bergman’s Bacchae’ (n. 10 above) and Carbajal, ‘Ingmar Bergman’ (n. 10 above).

  20. It took two years to complete the score, which was ready in 1989; see Porter, ‘Singing The Bacchae’ (n. 10 above), 153-154.

  21. Cf. S. Sablich, ‘Euripide mi ha insegnato l’arte sottile della vendetta’, Il Giornale, 31 October 1991. The opera Backanterna is one of several twentieth-century operas based on Euripides’ Bacchae; among them, the most famous are: Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger (1926; libretto by Szymanowski and J. Iwaszkiewicz), Egon Wellesz’s Die Bakchantinnen (1931; libretto by Wellesz) and Hans Werner Henze, The Bassarids (1966; libretto by W. H. Auden and C. Kallman); on these three versions, see R. Cowan, ‘Sing Evohe! Three Twentieth-Century Operatic Versions of Euripides’ Bacchae’, in P. Brown and S. Ograjenšek (eds.), Ancient Drama in Music for the Modern Stage, Oxford 2010, 320-339, and M. Ewans, Opera From the Greek: Studies in the Poetics of Appropriation, Aldershot – Burlington VT 2007, 153-181 (the latter on The Bassarids only). Finally, in 1991-1992 John Buller composed another opera on the Bacchae, the Bakxai.

  22. Indeed even the 1996 Dramaten staging still retained some music, which Börtz specifically composed for this play – thus blurring further the distinction between the opera and the stage version.

  23. In fact, the only negative remarks among reviewers of the 1991 opera were those questioning its identity as an ‘opera’: Zern, ‘Mer teater än opera’ (n. 4 above) complained that Backanterna resembled ‘more a theatrical performance with music rather than an actual opera’. Similar were the comments by Porter, ‘Singing The Bacchae’ (n. 10 above), 153-154, and id., ‘Bergman’s Bacchae’ (n. 10 above): ‘The force of the play comes across, but not its richness and intricacy… it seemed something less than a fully-formed Bacchae opera’. See also Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 349-351, and ‘Backanterna, ein Musiktheaterstück von Daniel Börtz nach Euripides’ (n. 10 above).

  24. Cf. C. Larsén, ‘När backanterna fick sångröst’ (n. 13 above).

  25. As anticipated by Lundberg, ‘Här är Demonen på Operan!’ (n. 10 above): ‘Börtz cannot be imagined without Bergman and vice versa. Therefore, the Bacchae will only exist as the next dozen scheduled performances, which will now run for a few intense weeks. Afterwards they will be recorded in a studio and never return to the stage again.’ Cf. also Sablich, ‘Dioniso en travesti’ (n. 10 above).

  26. They have been well analyzed by Rygg, ‘The Metamorphosis of The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above); see also Lundberg, ‘Här är Demonen på Operan!’ (n. 10 above); Porter, ‘Singing The Bacchae’ (n. 10 above), 154; Redvall, Opera News (n. 10 above); Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 96-97.

  27. L. Bergstörm, ‘Bergman’s Best Intentions’, Scanorama (May 1992), 10-18, at 15.

  28. D. Börtz, Backanterna, Opera i två akter. Text Euripides. Regi I. Bergman. Scensk tolkning J. Stolpe och G. O. Eriksson. Text and libretto in Swedish and English, Caprice Records 1993, 57-59.

  29. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 61.

  30. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 61.

  31. As highlighted by Porter, ‘Bergman’s Bacchae’ (n. 10 above) and ‘Singing The Bacchae’ (n. 10 above), 154. In the latter article Porter also notes (ibid., 151-152) that many librettists who prepared operas based on the Bacchae did change the text in order to have more ‘solo’ roles for female singers, as in Die Bakchantinnen and in The Bassarids.

  32. Bergman, Images: My Life in Film (n. 16 above), 175; Sjögren, Lek och raseri (n. 1 above), 343 and 356.

  33. Carbajal, ‘Ingmar Bergman’ (n. 10 above). Lena Ohlin was a rising star of the Dramaten at that time and was one of Bergman’s favorite actresses. However, I could not find any other evidence that Bergman had chosen her for the role. Dag Kronlund, at the head of the library and archive of the Dramaten Theater, checked Bergman’s notes for the 1986-1987 project for me: apparently Bergman had written down all the actors’ names for the chorus but not the name of the actor/actress who was to play Dionysus.

  34. On the other hand, Elin Klinga of the 1996 stage version is decidedly more feminine, and hence less ambiguous and less threatening. See n. 103 below.

  35. This similarity has been noted in passing also by Rygg, ‘The Metamorphosis of The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 56, and Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide (n. 16 above), 768. Cf. also Zern, ‘Mer teater än opera’ (n. 4 above) and Sablich, ‘Dioniso en travesti’ (n. 10 above).

  36. On this scene, cf. H. I. Cohen, Ingmar Bergman. The Art of Confession, New York 1993, 245-246. The connection with Persona was suggested already by Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide (n. 16 above), 768.

  37. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 65.

  38. Ingmar Bergman, Fanny and Alexander. Translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair, New York 1982, 197.

  39. Bergman, Fanny and Alexander (n. 38 above), 198.

  40. Bergman, Fanny and Alexander (n. 38 above), 199.

  41. Bergman, Fanny and Alexander (n. 38 above), 200. On this scene, see Cohen, Ingmar Bergman. The Art of Confession (n. 36 above), 405, and M. J. Blackwell, Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman, Columbia SC 1997, 36-41.

  42. Comic nuances have been perceived by some scholars in this scene of the Bacchae; see B. Seidensticker, ‘Comic Elements in Euripides’ Bacchae’, The American Journal of Philology 99 (1978), 303-320, at 316-318. However, see also E. R. Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae. Edited with Introduction and Commentary, Oxford 19602, 191-192 (ad Ba. 912-976), and R. Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae, with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Warminster 1996, 222-223 (ad Ba. 912-976).

  43. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 73.

  44. Interestingly enough, Bergman used cross-dressing elsewhere to highlight the idea of gender as performance and as a fluid idea, with Manda/Mr. Aman in The Magician (1958) and Johan in The Silence (1963). In these two films cross-dressing has a positive meaning and serves Bergman’s aim at exploring ‘human subjectivity, oscillating between the poles of masculinity and femininity’, as suggested by Koskinen, Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence (n. 7 above), 56. In fact, this ‘positive’ cross-dressing is taken up willingly by the woman Manda (The Magician) or as an unthreatening game by the boy Johan (The Silence), who is described as ‘a little embarrassed by his getup, but not at all frightened’ (I. Bergman, A Film Trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly, The Communicants (Winter Light), The Silence, translated by P. Britten Austin, London 1967, 116). Men, on the other hand, do not cross-dress in Bergman’s films but rather seem to be hopelessly locked in their own gender; cf. Blackwell, Gender and Representation (n. 41 above), 28-36. In a striking contrast with cross-dressing as it is depicted in these films, Backanterna’s cross-dressing, far from being a free choice or a game, is forced upon the deranged mind of a male – so in a way it is a ‘fake’ and invalid instance of cross-dressing.

  45. F: 134. - Arbetsbok 41: notes on the play and production, 52 handwritten pages, date: 1990(?).

  46. I. Bergman, Inför urpremiären på Backanterna. Information lördagen den 26 Oktober 1991 kl 14.00 I Rutundan, Stockholm 1991. Quite interestingly, the ‘official’ program of the 1991 opera had only the summaries of the two acts and the map of the maenads’ travels, while their biographies had been completely omitted. The ‘official’ program (which also contained some notes by Börtz as well as the libretto of the opera) is reproduced (in Swedish as well as in English) in the booklet attached to the CD: for the English version, see Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 48-56 (introduction) and 57-83 (libretto). In what follows, however, I have always used the pre-premiere booklet and provided my own translations.

  47. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 1-2. See also Bergstörm, ‘Bergman’s Best Intentions’ (n. 27 above), 17.

  48. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 5.

  49. In the script used in the 1991 production (D: 123 – Script) at p. 37 there is the following ‘social’ distinction: leaders (Alpha), girls (Lambda, Rho, Sigma, Tau), married woman (Eta, Omega, Theta, Xi), widows (Beta, Delta, Gamma, Zeta). These specific social statuses are maintained in Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 5-15, with the exception of Omega, who is unmarried (ibid., 5), and Gamma, whose marital status and age are not specified; yet we are told that she was a war slave of Pentheus and his mistress until she fled to Colophon, where she joined the bacchants (ibid., 13).

  50. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 11.

  51. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 3.

  52. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 74 and 75.

  53. Cf. Rygg, ‘The Metamorphosis of The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 64; Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 97.

  54. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 12: ‘She [i.e. Talatta] was dressed and had make-up applied on her and represented sometimes Dionysus, sometimes some other divinity or a ‘scapegoat’ (at the beginning of the second act she represents a grotesquely guyed-up Pentheus – an object of hate which is sprinkled with blood and terribly abused)’. According to Bergman, then, Talatta not only holds the puppet representing Pentheus but is also an image for Pentheus – and both are victims of the Dionysiac cult.

  55. On the positive sides of Dionysiac cult as represented by the chorus of Asian bacchants, see Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 48.

  56. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 3.

  57. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 77-79. On the mix of horror and irony shown by the Asian bacchants towards Agave in the original, see Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 219 (ad Ba. 1153-1164) and 223-226 (ad Ba. 1168-1199); Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 243 (ad Ba. 1171).

  58. Bάκχαι Καδμεῖαι, / τὸν καλλίνικον κλεινὸν ἐξεπράξατε / ἐς γόον, ἐς δάκρυα. / καλὸς ἀγὼν †ἐν αἵματι στάζουσαν / χέρα περιβαλεῖν τέκνου†. The text is corrupt, even if the sense is clear; see Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 221 (ad Ba. 1163-1164); Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 241 (ad Ba. 1163-1164). These lines were already cut by Bergman from the preparatory script in 1987 (D: 121 – Script, at 53-54).

  59. ‘I see – join my retinue’ in Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 77 (= Ba. 1172: ὁρῶ καί σε δέξομαι σύγκωμον).

  60. ‘Happy you, Agave!’ in Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 78 (= Ba. 1180: μάκαιρ’ Ἀγαυή). Most modern editors (Dodds, Seaford, and Diggle) attribute this line to Agave congratulating herself, while in the libretto it is addressed by Gamma to Agave. If in the original play the address is by the chorus (as one manuscript has it), it is clearly ironical, like the καλὸς ἀγών of Ba. 1163; cf. Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 224 (ad Ba. 1180).

  61. Even if the bacchants in the chorus seem to distance themselves from Agave’s actions when at her invitation to join her festival they reply: ‘Festival – oh no’ in Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 78. Yet the original Greek (Ba. 1184: τί μετέχω, τλᾶμον; ‘what shall I take part in, oh wretched one?’) is certainly much more critical of Agave.

  62. Ba. 386-401: ‘Misfortune is the result of unbridled mouths and lawless folly; but a quiet life and wisdom remain unshaken and hold houses together. Though dwelling faraway in heaven, the gods see the deeds of mortals. Cleverness is not wisdom, and having thoughts unfit for mortals [means] a short life. Because of this, who by pursuing great things would not enjoy the present? In my view, these are the behaviors of mad and ill-advised men’ (ἀχαλίνων στομάτων / ἀνόμου τ' ἀφροσύνας / τὸ τέλος δυστυχία / ὁ δὲ τᾶς ἡσυχίας / βίοτος καὶ τὸ φρονεῖν / ἀσάλευτόν τε μένει καὶ / ξυνέχει δώματα· πόρσω / γὰρ ὅμως αἰθέρα ναίον/τες ὁρῶσιν τὰ βροτῶν οὐρανίδαι / τὸ σοφὸν δ' οὐ σοφία,  / τό τε μὴ θνατὰ φρονεῖν / βραχὺς αἰών· ἐπὶ τούτῳ / δὲ τίς ἂν μεγάλα διώκων / τὰ παρόντ' οὐχὶ φέροι; μαι/νομένων  οἵδε τρόποι καὶ / κακοβούλων παρ' ἔμοιγε φωτῶν).

  63. Ba. 882-896: ‘Divine might is set in motion with difficulty, but yet is sure. It chastises those mortals who honor folly and who in their mad opinions do not exalt the divine. [The gods] in various ways conceal the long pace of time and hunt the unholy. For one should not consider or care for anything beyond the laws. It is of little cost to consider that what is divine (whatever it is) has force and that what has been valid for a long time is forever and by nature’ (ὁρμᾶται μόλις, ἀλλ' ὅμως / πιστόν <τι> τὸ θεῖον / σθένος·ἀπευθύνει δὲ βροτῶν / τούς τ' ἀγνωμοσύναν τιμῶν/τας  καὶ μὴ τὰ θεῶν αὔξον/τας σὺν μαινομένᾳ δόξᾳ. / κρυπτεύουσι δὲ ποικίλως / δαρὸν χρόνου πόδα καὶ / θηρῶσιν τὸν ἄσεπτον· οὐ / γὰρ κρεῖσσόν ποτε τῶν νόμων / γιγνώσκειν χρὴ καὶ μελετᾶν. / κούφα γὰρ δαπάνα νομί/ζειν ἰσχὺν τόδ' ἔχειν, / ὅτι ποτ' ἄρα τὸ δαιμόνιον, / τό τ' ἐν χρόνῳ μακρῷ νόμιμον / ἀεὶ φύσει τε πεφυκός).

  64. Cf. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 62-63 and 72.

  65. The only passage which is kept and still speaks of wisdom is: ‘Wisdom before the gods we learn from the inevitability of death. A modest life is safe from anguish. Erudition I abhor. My joy is to seek far greater values, those which everybody sees, to turn towards that which is good: night and day to reject everything that violates a law, and thus to spend my whole life in piety, in praise of the gods’ (Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 75), which loosely translates Ba. 1002-1010 in the fourth stasimon. Yet in Bergman’s staging these words are sung during the sparagmos onstage, which shows the lust for blood of these bacchants, so they ultimately sound hideously ironic and grim.

  66. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 68-69.

  67. Cf. Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 94: ‘In Act II the Bacchae, too, appear in animal-like half-masks. The beast in man has come out’.

  68. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 81-82. Cf. Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 234-235 (ad Ba. 1329); Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 252-253 (ad Ba. 1329-1330).

  69. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 82. In the preparatory libretto of 1987 (D : 121 – Script, at pp. 68-69), on the contrary, all the references to Harmonia were cut (Ba. 1331-1332 and 1338-1339).

  70. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 3.

  71. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 83.

  72. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 83. This translates Ba. 1377-1378: καὶ γὰρ ἔπασχον δεινὰ πρὸς ὑμῶν, / ἀγέραστον ἔχων ὄνομ' ἐν Θήβαις (‘for Ι have suffered terrible things from you, since my name was dishonored here in Thebes’). This is the reading of the manuscripts, accepted by Dodds; yet some modern editions (Seaford and Diggle) have an emended text with ἔπασχεν and ἡμῶν, so that these lines are attributed to Cadmus (‘for he has suffered terrible things from us, since his name was dishonored here in Thebes’). Cf. Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 241 (ad Ba. 1377-1378) and Seaford, Euripides, Bacchae (n. 42 above), 257 (ad Ba. 1377). Needless to say, the reading of the manuscripts makes Dionysus even more unsympathetic – not surprisingly this is the version chosen by Bergman.

  73. In the 1991 opera Dionysus was not wearing a mask but had on a heavy amount of makeup, which was smudged in this scene.

  74. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 4: ‘Agave then casts a last curse against Dionysus.  The deceived, violated, humiliated woman raises her hand against the omnipotent God. He answers with Olympian fury and strikes her literally to the ground’.

  75. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 4.

  76. Bergman, The Magic Lantern (n. 12 above), 256.

  77. See also Carlsson, ‘Operan hoppas på Bergman’ (n. 10 above): ‘There is a tremendous rage in this play,’ says Bergman, ‘in that the nerve that feels pain, the core, is the struggle of the vulnerable, defenseless human being against power. Here it is about a god, but it could have also been a dictator, a politician, or another authority. The piece reveals something that I call ‘mankind’s holiness’, and by that I mean that someone performs actions without the slightest trace of selfishness, sacrifices himself without demanding anything in return’.

  78. The fish-sign is absent in the 1991 opera. It is impossible to know whether this interpretation came to Bergman at a later stage; yet it is also obvious that such a detail would have been impossible to convey to an audience gathered in a big opera house. This is why the 1993 TV version becomes so interesting: the TV medium allowed Bergman to show (even momentarily) key details with camera close-ups.

  79. Talatta, on the other hand, does not belong to the chorus, as she never sings and has a peculiar religious function within the group of these Dionysus worshippers.

  80. The similarity between the number of Bergman’s bacchants and the apostles was suggested in passing by Åhlén, ‘Bergman har nått målet’, Karlsson, ‘Backanterna på scen med storslagna aktörer’, Carbajal, ‘Ingmar Bergman’ and Porter, ‘Singing The Bacchae’, 155, (all n. 10 above), who saw the 1991 production. The crosses at the beginning of Act 2 were present also in the 1991 opera and were noted by Karlsson, ‘Backanterna på scen med storslagna aktörer’ (n. 10 above) and by the anonymous German reviewer of the 1991 opera, in ‘Totentanz am Telefon’ (no. 10 above), 278: ‘Mit lästerlicher Wollust ließ der Pfarrerssohn aus Uppsala einige Kreuze in seinen Spielplatz. Die Szenerie erinnert an Golgatha, an den Kruzifixen hängen nun Tierkadaver mit offenen Bäuchen und rotem Gekröse’. Yet because the 1991 opera did not have other allusions to Christian religion, viewers would have been less likely to connect the crosses at the beginning of Act 2 and the number of chorus members to the overarching theme of Euripides’ play as interpreted by Bergman. In the 1993 production, then, the Christian connection was made much clearer.

  81. In the passage from Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 11, quoted above (see at n. 50), Bergman says that Dera and her daughter Talatta met the bacchants at a ‘salvation meeting’ in Aspendos. What I translated as ‘salvation meeting’ is the Swedish frälsningsmöte; even if this is the literal meaning of the compound, the word frälsning, ‘salvation’, is also used in connection with intensive religious experiences that lead to conversion. This practice is common in some Christian Protestant congregations such as the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, the Baptist Union of Sweden, and the United Methodist Church of Sweden (the so-called ‘free-churches’, which are independent from the Church of Sweden). These churches all advocate that their members should choose religion when they are mature and conscious of the choice, promoting the idea that the encounter with Jesus Christ transforms. Thus, Bergman’s choice of the word frälsningsmöte to describe the bacchants’ proselytism seems to have been made on purpose in order to suggest a link between Dionysiac religion in the Bacchae and some modern Christian practices in Sweden. I would like to thank Frederika Tevebring for bringing to my attention the meaning of the word and its religious connotations.

  82. Bergman, Inför urpremiären (n. 46 above), 5.

  83. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 75 (see above n. 65).

  84. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 72.

  85. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 69 (≈ Ba. 777: Διόνυσος ἥσσων οὐδενὸς θεῶν ἔφυ).

  86. Börtz, Backanterna (n. 28 above), 83 (≈ Ba. 1388-1392: πολλαὶ μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων, / πολλὰ δ' ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοί· /  καὶ τὰ δοκηθέντ' οὐκ ἐτελέσθη, / τῶν δ' ἀδοκήτων πόρον ηὗρε θεός. / τοιόνδ' ἀπέβη τόδε πρᾶγμα).

  87. As is well known, Bergman already quoted from the Book of Revelation in the title of The Seventh Seal (from Rev. 8:1).

  88. The ‘Eye of God’ or the ‘All-seeing Eye’ is of course also a Freemason symbol, but a connection with Freemasonry is hard to find in Bergman’s Bacchae. It is interesting, however, that aside from Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress the only other opera Bergman ever worked on was Mozart’s The Magic Flute, notoriously full of masonic symbolism.

  89. For this reason I do not agree with those who see also Christ in Bergman’s Dionysus, such as Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 94-95, and Larsén, ‘När Backanterna fick sångröst’ (n. 13 above), who notes that: ‘The god Dionysus has two contrasting manifestations in Euripides. There is the light figure who protects his followers – the Christ symbolism is evident and is also highlighted in the musical interpretation. But Dionysus is also the god who punishes mercilessly, who cannot tolerate defiance. This is what Pentheus gets to experience in his rationalist overconfidence.’ Perhaps this identification was possible in the 1996 Dramaten staging (see below n. 103), but it seems hardly possible in the opera version with its repulsive Dionysus.

  90. Talatta’s particular connection with Dionysus is shown by Bergman in the so-called ‘miracle’ scene: when, after the earthquake, Dionysus reaches the maenads as a god (hence wearing a mask), she is the only one to see him, while all the other bacchants can see him only as the Stranger when he takes off the mask. In the original, too, when Dionysus frees himself from Pentheus’ prison and reaches them (Ba. 604-641), the Asian bacchae can only see him as the Stranger and not as a god.

  91. For Lutherans, in fact, Christ is the mediator between a wrathful God and us, sinful humans, through a shameful death on a cross; see R. A. Blake, The Lutheran Milieu of the Films of Ingmar Bergman. PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University 1972, 96-97 and 134-147. Blake, however, notes (ibid., 317) that Bergman does not seem to accept any ‘positive’ role for Christ and concludes (ibid., 321): ‘And while Bergman denies Christ a central place in his conceptual framework, the functions of Christ are assigned totally and unchanged to man, for while Luther sees salvation as coming from God through Christ, Bergman sees man’s happiness as coming from that moment of contact when two lives touch’.

  92. Cf. Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide (n. 16 above), 442. Törnqvist, ‘Euripides’ The Bacchae’ (n. 3 above), 94-95, notices the significant timing of the broadcasting as well as the crucified animals, the crucified Talatta, and the twelve chorus members, but since he connects Dionysus with both God and Jesus, he does not consider Talatta a Christ-figure. In fact, he speaks (ibid., 98) of a ‘human crucifixion’ and concludes: ‘A crucified animal uniting, as it were, the bloodthirsty maenads with those who demanded Christ’s crucifixion, figures prominently in Bergman’s version. The obvious and striking difference is that whereas Good Friday commemorates how a loving god sacrificed himself for mankind, Bergman’s version illustrates the very opposite: how mankind is the victim of a cruel god’.

  93. This equation was criticized by the only critic who noticed it, Karlsson, ‘Backanterna på scen med storslagna aktörer’ (n. 10 above): ‘When Bergman deals with religious problems he gets it wrong most of the time […]. Is the Dionysiac cult going to be comparable with Christianity? […] But we can just point to thousands of Catholic priests and nuns, who wander out into the streets and in the slums of cities around the world in order to help people in deepest need. Just one example. Where is there power and revenge?’. For Åhlén, ‘Bergman har nått målet’ (n. 10 above) and ‘Ögonen talar starkast’ (n. 11 above), on the other hand, Bergman is here attacking only religious fanaticism.

  94. On these motifs, see Cohen, Ingmar Bergman. The Art of Confession (n. 36 above), 34-35, 64-70, 121-194; Steene, Ingmar Bergman. A Reference Guide (n. 16 above), 31-32, 38-39, 144-147. On religious themes in Bergman’s films, see also Blake, The Lutheran Milieu (n. 91 above); Blake, ‘Ingmar Bergman’s Post-Christian God’ (n. 12 above); A. S. Widding, ‘What Should We Believe?: Religious Motifs in Ingmar Bergman’s Films’, in M. Koskinen (ed.), Ingmar Bergman Revisited: Performance, Cinema and the Arts, London 2008, 194-209.

  95. Another female Christ-figure is Agnes in Cries and Whispers (1972) who has the same name as Indra’s daughter, another Christ-figure in Strindberg’s A Dream Play, staged by Bergman in 1970; cf. E. Törnqvist, Between Stage and Screen. Ingmar Bergman Directs. Amsterdam 1995, 23 and 153.

  96. Bergman, A Film Trilogy (n. 44 above), 58-59.

  97. Cf. Blake, The Lutheran Milieu (n. 91 above), 118; Cohen, Ingmar Bergman. The Art of Confession (n. 36 above), 174.

  98. Interestingly, all the reviews I could read (Aare, ‘Hänförande explosion i bild och ton’, Åhlén, ‘Ögonen talar starkast’, Lundberg, ‘Gudarna sjunger ut’ (all n. 11 above)) praised the 1993 TV version and considered it even better that the 1991 version; yet none of them mentioned the Christological theme in this version or the ‘disturbing’ overlap with the Christian holiday of Good Friday.

  99. See n. 12 above.

  100. Aside from the two attempts in 1954 and 1986-1987, and the three versions in 1991, 1993, and 1996, Bergman also used intertextual references to the Bacchae in other films, such as Rakel reciting the prologue of the Bacchae in After the Rehearsal (1984). Cf. Cohen, Ingmar Bergman. The Art of Confession (n. 36 above), 411; Törnqvist, ‘A Life in the Theater’ (n. 3 above), 30 and 37. To some extent, the ‘bacchic’ drama performed by the artists in The Ritual (1969) is also an intertextual reference (though less explicit) to Euripides. Indeed, Bergman, Images: My Life in Film (n. 16 above), 175-176, also connected The Ritual with the ritualistic aspect of Greek theater and specifically with the Bacchae.

  101. Bergman’s distaste for Christ reinforces my reading of Talatta above. Talatta-Christ is certainly a victim of God but, unlike Pentheus and Agave, she is not portrayed in a positive light: in the passage quoted above (see at n. 50) Bergman calls her ‘next to autistic… motionless and absent-minded’. Christ and Talatta are not evil (like God), but they are definitely fools.

  102. Bergman, The Magic Lantern (n. 12 above), 80. Along the same lines is the comment by Alexander in Fanny and Alexander (1982): ‘If there is a God, then he’s a shit and piss God and I’d like to kick him in the arse’ (Bergman, Fanny and Alexander (n. 38 above), 195).

  103. Iversen, ‘The Terrible Encounter with a God’ (n. 3 above), provides a theological yet very different interpretation. Iversen, who is a Medieval Latin specialist, stresses the similarities between Bergman’s tragedy and the medieval Christian liturgical drama, as in both ‘we find a god who reveals to the simple and poor what is hidden to the powerful and rational man, and we find the horror of man confronted with the divine’ (ibid., 82). This more positive view of Bergman’s Backanterna is based on the 1996 theater version (ibid., 70 and 72), which lacks the Christological symbols discussed above and has a less dark tone. Indeed, the young and beautiful actress Elin Klinga playing Dionysus with her white dress conveyed an idea of purity rather than coldness; furthermore, she did not have the more disturbing traits of the Dionysus of the opera version. While in my view Iversen’s interpretation can be applied only to the 1996 version, perhaps there was indeed a development between the opera (where Bergman had a cruder view of the divine) and the latest theatrical version.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Francesca Schironi

Authors
  1. Francesca Schironi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesca Schironi.

Additional information

I have benefitted from the help of many people for this research: Hélène Dahl (archivist at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation), Dag Kronlund (head librarian at the Royal Dramatic Theater), Anna Kyhlberg-Boström (head of the Music Library and Archives at the Royal Swedish Opera), Camilla Vaara (archivist at the Royal Swedish Opera), and Helena Falck (at the Department of Audiovisual Media at the National Library of Sweden) all helped me with archive material when I was in Stockholm in August 2011 and also answered my questions during the following months. Aaron Kahn, Neil Robinson (University of Michigan Library), and Mats Rohdin (National Library of Sweden) provided me with copies of articles and reviews. At the University of Michigan Vassilis Lambropoulos tracked down the article of TA NEA and helped me with the Modern Greek text, Johanna Eriksson put me in contact with students who helped me to translate the Swedish bibliography for this study, Artemis Leontis read a first draft of this paper and gave very helpful suggestions. Finally, the two anonymous referees of IJCT offered valuable comments and constructive criticism. To each of them, my sincere thanks.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schironi, F. Staging, Interpreting, Speaking Through Euripides: Ingmar Bergman Directs the Bacchae . Int class trad 23, 127–157 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-015-0383-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-015-0383-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation