Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Michael Nyman
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat (1986)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
- hp/2vn.va.2vc/pf
- Soprano, Tenor, Baritone
- 1 hr 10 min
- Christopher Rawlence, based on the case study by Oliver Sacks
- English, German, Russian
Programme Note
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
An investigation into the world of a man (Dr P) with visual agnosia (or ‘mental blindness’ due to damage of the visual parts of the brain). Such patients ‘see but do not see’. They see colours, lines, boundaries, simple shapes, patterns, movement – but they are unable to recognise, or find sense in, what they see. They cannot recognise people or places or common objects; their visual world is no longer meaningful or familiar, but strange, abstract, chaotic, mystifying. If a world cannot be organised visually, other organizing principles may be found and used. In the case of Dr P, a gifted performer, his exceptional musical ability allows him, in large measure, to return sense to the world by putting it and his actions into music.
FULL SYNOPSIS
i. Prologue: The Examiner delivers an address concerning his approach to neurology, and introduces the case of Doctor P.
ii. The First Examination: Doctor and Mrs P. arrive at the neurologist's clinic, having been referred by an ophthalmologist. A series of routine neurological tests is carried out, revealing little. As he prepares to depart, P makes several alarming mistakes and the neurologist resolves to see him again.
iii. The House Call: Baffled by his first meeting with P, the neurologist determines to observe his patient in the environment of his own home. The investigation continues as the neurologist engages P in a variety of visual exercises designed to reveal the nature of P's condition: geometric solids / cartoons/ television/ photographs/ rose/ glove/ chess game.
iv. Testing Visual Memory: The neurologist asks P to describe, form one end to the other, the buildings and layout of a local street they both know well.
v. Paintings as Pathology? An Argument: The neurologist discovers that P is a talented amateur painter. Upon examining a portfolio of his paintings, he concludes that P's illness is reflected in these works, which have moved from representational, figurative painting to the purely abstract. This conclusion angers Mrs, P, who is insistent that the change in her husband's painting style is an expression of his artistic development, not of his deepening illness.
vi. The Prescription: As P continues enjoying his tea, Mrs, P explains to the neurologist how her husband manages, through music, to cope with daily life in spite of his perceptual problems.
vii. Epilogue: The neurologist delivers his concluding remarks on the case.
PROGRAMME NOTE
Dr. P and his wife both have elements of the heroic, but the real hero in The Hat is surely music - the power of music to organise and integrate, to knit or re-knit a shattered world into sense.
I have said this in the case history, but it needs to be shown: 'what can be shown cannot be said.' And how better could it be shown - indeed how else - than by an opera? This was Michael Nyman's brilliant inspiration. One would not have thought, on principle, that such matters of neurology or epistemology could be explored in an opera - but opera turns out to be the perfect medium: the theme seems pre-ordained for the form. Thus, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, in a manner which first appears highly improbable, but then seems to be almost inevitable, turns into a neurological opera - the first such in the history of neurology or opera.
© Oliver Sacks
COMPOSER'S NOTE
The subject of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Dr. P, requires music as a lifeline, cue, clue, cure.
Its treatment in the hands of Sacks, Christopher Rawlence, and Michael Morris invites a music which may exaggerate, suggest, narrate, dislocate, illustrate, allude, connect, schematicize, cite, express, analyse, structure, mechanise, differentiate, identify, compress, distance, abstract, represent, recreate, cross-refer, strip-down, denote, motivate, formalise…
My initial conception of the opera (strictly following Oliver Sacks' structure) was a series of diagnostic events (hat mistaking, rose describing, etc.) each self-contained, independent, yet accumulatively (rather than cumulatively) building an awareness of Dr. P's illness - evidence increasing as musical detail decreases. The case study progresses while standing still.
© Michael Nyman
An investigation into the world of a man (Dr P) with visual agnosia (or ‘mental blindness’ due to damage of the visual parts of the brain). Such patients ‘see but do not see’. They see colours, lines, boundaries, simple shapes, patterns, movement – but they are unable to recognise, or find sense in, what they see. They cannot recognise people or places or common objects; their visual world is no longer meaningful or familiar, but strange, abstract, chaotic, mystifying. If a world cannot be organised visually, other organizing principles may be found and used. In the case of Dr P, a gifted performer, his exceptional musical ability allows him, in large measure, to return sense to the world by putting it and his actions into music.
FULL SYNOPSIS
i. Prologue: The Examiner delivers an address concerning his approach to neurology, and introduces the case of Doctor P.
ii. The First Examination: Doctor and Mrs P. arrive at the neurologist's clinic, having been referred by an ophthalmologist. A series of routine neurological tests is carried out, revealing little. As he prepares to depart, P makes several alarming mistakes and the neurologist resolves to see him again.
iii. The House Call: Baffled by his first meeting with P, the neurologist determines to observe his patient in the environment of his own home. The investigation continues as the neurologist engages P in a variety of visual exercises designed to reveal the nature of P's condition: geometric solids / cartoons/ television/ photographs/ rose/ glove/ chess game.
iv. Testing Visual Memory: The neurologist asks P to describe, form one end to the other, the buildings and layout of a local street they both know well.
v. Paintings as Pathology? An Argument: The neurologist discovers that P is a talented amateur painter. Upon examining a portfolio of his paintings, he concludes that P's illness is reflected in these works, which have moved from representational, figurative painting to the purely abstract. This conclusion angers Mrs, P, who is insistent that the change in her husband's painting style is an expression of his artistic development, not of his deepening illness.
vi. The Prescription: As P continues enjoying his tea, Mrs, P explains to the neurologist how her husband manages, through music, to cope with daily life in spite of his perceptual problems.
vii. Epilogue: The neurologist delivers his concluding remarks on the case.
PROGRAMME NOTE
Dr. P and his wife both have elements of the heroic, but the real hero in The Hat is surely music - the power of music to organise and integrate, to knit or re-knit a shattered world into sense.
I have said this in the case history, but it needs to be shown: 'what can be shown cannot be said.' And how better could it be shown - indeed how else - than by an opera? This was Michael Nyman's brilliant inspiration. One would not have thought, on principle, that such matters of neurology or epistemology could be explored in an opera - but opera turns out to be the perfect medium: the theme seems pre-ordained for the form. Thus, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, in a manner which first appears highly improbable, but then seems to be almost inevitable, turns into a neurological opera - the first such in the history of neurology or opera.
© Oliver Sacks
COMPOSER'S NOTE
The subject of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Dr. P, requires music as a lifeline, cue, clue, cure.
Its treatment in the hands of Sacks, Christopher Rawlence, and Michael Morris invites a music which may exaggerate, suggest, narrate, dislocate, illustrate, allude, connect, schematicize, cite, express, analyse, structure, mechanise, differentiate, identify, compress, distance, abstract, represent, recreate, cross-refer, strip-down, denote, motivate, formalise…
My initial conception of the opera (strictly following Oliver Sacks' structure) was a series of diagnostic events (hat mistaking, rose describing, etc.) each self-contained, independent, yet accumulatively (rather than cumulatively) building an awareness of Dr. P's illness - evidence increasing as musical detail decreases. The case study progresses while standing still.
© Michael Nyman
Media
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 1: Prologue: Neurology's favorite term is deficit (Neurologist)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 2: The First Examination: Traffic (Dr. P, Mrs. P, Neurologist)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 2: The Shoe: Can I help? (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 2: The Slides: You can see very clearly (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 2: The River: What do you see now? (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 2: The Dressing Ritual: …Wife for a hat (Neurologist, Mrs. P, Dr. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The House Call: Bösendorfer! (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: Ich Grolle Nicht (Dr. P, Neurologist, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Solids: But what of the parietal regions (Neurologist, Mrs. P, Dr. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Photographs: What is this? (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Rose: …Lost (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Glove: Now, what is this? (Neurologist, Dr. P, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Chess Game: Pawn to King 4 (Dr. P, Neurologist, Mrs. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 4: Testing Visual Memory: The Street: From our end (Dr. P, Mrs. P, Neurologist)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 5: Paintings As Pathlogy? An Argument: The Paintings: Your husband's a painter (Neurologist, Mrs. P, Dr. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 6: The Prescription: The Wife: Tell me, how does he manage? (Neurologist, Mrs. P, Dr. P)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 7: Epilogue: The Prognosis: I cannot tell you what is wrong (Neurologist, Mrs. P, Dr. P)
Scores
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