In Milan the rose blooms postmodern – Umberto Eco’s most famous novel as an opera

The large cross burns brightly, gauze curtains fall from the theater's ceiling. They symbolize the labyrinthine monastery library, in whose holdings a forbidden book about the subversive power of laughter was hidden – with fatal consequences. For now the Benedictine abbey goes up in flames, accompanied by ritual chants and distinctive rhythms. At the end, however, the music fades to complete silence. An entire world lies in ruins; there is no longer any reason for optimism.

Thus ends the opera "Il nome della rosa" by Francesco Filidei, based on the novel of the same name by Umberto Eco, which recently premiered at La Scala in Milan. And with this disillusioned ending, Filidei clearly distinguishes himself from other adaptations, particularly the popular 1986 film adaptation by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Sean Connery. Unlike in the book, the demagogic inquisitor Bernard Gui also dies—killed by an angry mob. In the film's pathos-filled opulence, there was no room for quiet pessimism.

Francesco Filidei, born in Pisa in 1973, has also avoided many of the film's errors and simplifications. Above all, however, his version reflects Eco's creative stance much more strongly. This is even more important in this 1980 novel than a precise retelling of the plot. The mere question of what this book actually aims to be opens up a wide field: whether a portrait of an era, a historical roman à clef, a philosophical and scientific treatise, or a detective and horror novel – it blends the most diverse genres.

As a polymath—equal parts literary scholar and philosopher, communications scholar and semiotician, philologist and medievalist—Eco disseminated his knowledge with relish, at times obsessiveness. He collaged entire passages from other texts, from the Bible, the pre-Socratics, and Aristotle, to William of Ockham and Wittgenstein, to James Joyce and Sigmund Freud. This expansive intertextuality, however, harbors the danger of scholarly chatter, which Eco has not always been able to avert.

No wonder the novel's central crime storyline was received much more widely than its theoretical underpinnings. Following the example of Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Watson, Eco famously sends the monk William of Baskerville and the chronicler Adso of Melk to hunt down a murderer in a medieval monastery. In addition to Arthur Conan Doyle, the inspiration for this work was also provided by crime novels by Agatha Christie and the horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe. And here, too, there is a second, philosophical level: Eco uses the crime setting to undermine the belief in a closed worldview based on the spirit of positivism. In this dismantling, he again follows the brilliant detective novel "The Ghastly Gathering on the Via Merulana" by his fellow countryman Carlo Emilio Gadda.

The diversity of sources and materials used has made Eco's "The Name of the Rose" an exemplary work of postmodernism. This, in turn, presents any stage or film adaptation with a nearly impossible task. For example, the film adaptation must necessarily forgo any intertextuality, as well as the element of ironic distance inherent in the collage technique, which is particularly palpable in the Sherlock Holmes allusions.

Filidei's new opera handles postmodern polyphony more subtly. The former master student of Salvatore Sciarrino seems almost predestined for a musical setting, as his music also pursues the idea of ​​a polystylistic richness of relationships. Nervous, noisy sound actions collide with romantic pathos or contemplative reflections, embedded in tonal, modal, or chromatically complex structures. At the same time, this stylistic pluralism is abundant with references. Filidei's not averse to irony was already demonstrated in his legendary 2015 piece "Killing Bach." With an entire arsenal of bird whistles and whistles, pistols, drills, and hammers, and not least with persistently recurring "Tristan" quotations, the venerable Thomaskantor is playfully maltreated.

In the same year, Filidei delved deep into the monastic world with his opera about the monk Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake. Here, he experimented with the cantus firmus, the medieval hocket technique, Gregorian chant, and forms of ritual spirituality. All of this can now be found in Eco's setting. It seems like a creative summary, garnished with numerous quotations from the "Dies Irae" motif to Puccini. And Filidei even implemented an idea of ​​Eco's, who, in a 1983 eulogy to his novel, proposed that his book could also be read as a comic opera with recitative and arioso elements.

In Milan, the two leading roles are now excellently cast, with Kate Lindsey in the trouser role of Adso and Lucas Meachem as William of Baskerville. Filidei's interpretation of the vocal parts is as varied as his instrumental style, ranging from medieval color and sprechgesang to large-scale cantilenas and sound acrobatics. Under the direction of conductor Ingo Metzmacher, the sophisticated interplay of La Scala's soloists, choir, and orchestra creates an organic whole, never merely a string of ideas.

If the score occasionally reveals the collage-like nature of the material assembled here, this was obviously Filidei's intention – probably as a slight dig at Eco's excessive love of quotations and allusions. Damiano Michieletto's visually stunning production picks up on this: all sorts of hellish creatures haunt the stage as if from paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, and when Adso lies in the arms of the Virgin Mary like Jesus at one point, the tradition of the Pietà is evoked in several depictions. Overall, Eco and his cult novel are not exaggerated here, but treated with the playful, ironic distance that the author himself displayed. This coherent concept received much applause at the premiere, but also loud boos.