Crown lotions – Newspaper Kommersant No. 192 (7393) dated 10/15/2022

The date of the coronation of King Charles III of Great Britain has been named: this will happen on May 6, 2023 in Westminster Abbey. According to a long tradition, this will not only be a great protocol celebration – the coronation also has cultural overtones. Sergei Khodnev tells how it happened and what pitfalls, for all that, may appear this time.

In the arsenal of the British monarchy, even during regular hours, there are some spectacular tools of a cultural nature. For example, the title of “poet laureate” is formally not just a distinction or an award, but an old position that has existed since the time of Charles I, which was performed by John Dryden and William Wordsworth, Robert Southey and Alfred Tennyson. The current Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, was appointed by the late Queen (albeit on the advice of the Prime Minister) in 2019, and he regularly writes occasional poems, as is his custom. Armitage’s free verse responded, for example, to the death of Prince Philip, to the Ukrainian military events, to the platinum jubilee of Elizabeth II and, finally, to her death – and they did not come out anywhere, but directly on the pages of the central newspapers. In other words, archaic honor works for the prestige of modern poetry (After all, Armitage is by no means a craftsman-odist, but a great and independent author).

Or the title of “Harper to the Prince of Wales.” On the one hand, it inherits the very gray days when the Celtic leaders kept musician-narrators with them, on the other hand, it was restored by the present king in 2000 in the form of good relations with the Welsh cultural community: Welsh and Welsh women are appointed to this position. But they play, of course, not on a medieval harp, but on a well-known modern instrument, so again we are talking about the broad prestige of the profession as a whole. Of course, the new Prince of Wales will not immediately fire harpist Alice Hughes, who has been in office since 2019: the accepted rotation period is four years. Simon Armitage, too, most likely, can be calm: his predecessors, if their strength allowed, peacefully worked as laureate poets for ten years.

But the coronation itself is a special case. Long ago it was customary to celebrate the accession of this or that monarch to the throne with a special opera: this is a pan-European custom, almost as old as the genre of opera itself. And the nearest English precedent literally begs itself. In 1953, celebrations in honor of the coronation of Elizabeth II included the gala premiere of Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana, written at the official request of the court.

It would seem that today there are even two ready candidates – George Benjamin and Thomas Ades, the most successful opera composers of today’s Great Britain (foreigners will definitely not be ordered such an opera, tea, not a Handelian age in the yard), whose works are performed all over the world. The prestige, of course, is over the top, the attention of the whole world is ensured for the new opera, beautiful lines in the resume are also, status support for the opera genre is evident. And yet, firstly, there is no guarantee that these particular composers – not so hot adherents of the throne and faith – will be inspired by the prospect of working “at the behest of his Majesty the King.” And Britten’s order was formulated precisely in such official terms – although, it must be admitted, in the end, the composer actually deceived the expectations of “strong” circles then, writing a difficult and sad drama instead of a panegyric entertainment.

Secondly, there is a critical problem with timing. Today’s composers, unlike their baroque counterparts, do not write operas in two weeks. The same Britten, say, began to think about the future “Gloriana” in March 1952; the libretto was ready in draft by August of the same year; the composer began composing in September, finished the piano score by February 1953, and barely managed to orchestrate by the end of spring. Total for everything about everything 15 months. Until May 6, 2023, there are half as many.

And most importantly, what plot to choose for a hypothetical opera? In 1953, an opera about Elizabeth I might have seemed fitting, the nation after the hardships of war was glad to rally around the young queen and dream of a new Elizabethan age. Today is a different time, and the name of the new king, in addition, evokes not the most brilliant historical associations. In general, it will be safest to assume that the idea of ​​a new opera will be abandoned and something like the coronation gala of 1911 will be arranged, when a combined program was performed for George V and his guests on the stage of Covent Garden: one act each from Aida Verdi, Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville – plus Mikhail Fokine’s ballet The Pavilion of Armida performed by the Diaghilev troupe.

What remains is the coronation itself, which actually poses a lot of various tasks – both decorative and applied, and artistic. Someone will have to design for Westminster Abbey the design of temporary spectator stands and a “theatre” (this is the name of the platform in front of the main altar, where the main ritual events take place), the front and office extension in front of the main entrance, the decoration of streets and squares – all this during past coronations regularly reflected great changes in artistic tastes. And someone will have to write the music. For the last hundred years, the coronation action has been conceived of as a triumph of English music, starting from the time of the Renaissance, but modern compositions are also included in this triumph over and over again.

The ceremonial entry of the king into the abbey will most likely be accompanied by the hymn “I was glad” (“I rejoiced when they told me”, psalm 121) in the version of Hubert Parry, created in 1902 and sounded at all coronations since then. During the climax of the ritual moment – the anointing of the new king to the kingdom – one of the coronation anthems of George Frideric Handel, “Zadok the priest” (“Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon …”) will definitely sound: this has been happening for almost three hundred years, from 1727. Renaissance polyphony – Thomas Tallis or Orlando Gibbons – will surely be reserved for the Eucharistic part of the service. Small choral pieces a cappella, probably, will be new compositions – judging by the newly written music that sounded at the funeral of Elizabeth II. In addition, knowing the tastes of Charles III, it cannot be ruled out that a small musical moment from the Orthodox tradition, some kind of “Many Years”, may suddenly arise.

But blindingly solemn music, like the ceremonial marches of William Walton and Edward Elgar, is likely to be less overall than in 1953. And the performing forces will be somewhat curtailed compared to the then coronation, when the consolidated choir alone numbered 350 people.

The new king wants his coronation to be more modest – insiders say this, but the objective circumstances of the time require the same. The coronation ceremony of Elizabeth II lasted three hours – this, of course, is not the limit at all, it took the French Bourbons five to six hours. But for the beginning of the 21st century, and this is a lot, it will have to be reduced. In addition, in a modern multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state, it is still appropriate for such a ritual to be more inclusive than it used to be, and therefore innovations are possible. It can no longer be that the monarch is formally “recognized” as the legitimate king exclusively by peers and representatives of the Anglican clergy, it will be necessary to introduce representatives of different classes, different ethnic groups, different faiths, which profile experts have been talking about for a long time. To do this, it will probably even be necessary to move part of the ceremony outside the temple space – for example, to Westminster Hall, where the farewell to the late queen took place.

And with all this inclusiveness, humanity, modesty and media, robes, thrones, anointing, changing sacred robes, handing spurs, orbs, a ritual ring, sceptres, a sword, laying a crown, countless prayers (plus a separate anointing and crowning of the royal spouses). In a word, that ritual core, which is already a thousand years old, which goes back in a straight line to the French “miracle-working kings”, to the Visigoths, to the Byzantine emperors. And which is not preserved anywhere else, even in other monarchical states, but lives in England. What can I say, so far the British have succeeded in such combinations of the incongruous. The sky does not fall to earth when, in a post-industrial power, the approval of parliamentary bills is accompanied by the same decrepit formulas in Old French as under Edward III in the 14th century. In its own way, this judicious love for the complex state ceremonial, with all its historical connotations, is also a cultural phenomenon, great and rare. But, presumably, disappearing anyway.