Like many Americans born near the middle of the Twentieth Century, I first encountered the idea of a vampire by watching early television reruns of Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Only later did I learn the background—how Bram Stoker’s novel emerged from the Gothic literary lineage of the Nineteenth Century, and how the figure of the vampire owed many characteristics to Byronic tales like “The Giaour” and “Manfred.”

            Despite the success of recent actors in redepicting Dracula, the performance of Bela Lugosi has always retained my affection. Like Lon Chaney Sr. in Phantom of the Opera, Lugosi created an unforgettable visual archetype. When I heard that Dana Gioia was writing an opera libretto based on Murnau’s silent film, Nosferatu, I feared an outbreak of High Camp; but the finished work has a much graver quality than I expected. Gioia’s remarkable dramatic poem can now be read in advance of full-scale operatic production, thanks to Graywolf Press of St. Paul, Minnesota.

            Libretto is an unfamiliar medium for English-language authors. Other than W. H. Auden, no modern poet of note has taken much interest in writing for music. Broadway does have an accomplished lyricist in Stephen Sondheim, though he is generally regarded as a composer first, versifier second. Choosing words for music, a poet must alter several of the usual criteria for composition. Expression must be simple and direct. Charged poetic language is difficult for a performer to sing or an audience to comprehend in a musical setting, where the least strain or perplexity would undermine the emotional effect so necessary in opera. Strong sentiments are also requisite, though mostly unfashionable among modern poets.

            Nosferatu has distinctly more contemporary story-line than that of Dracula or its predecessors. It is a protofeminist drama of a weak-willed husband (Eric) and a strong-willed wife (Ellen). It also features a figuratively-bloodsucking businessman (Skuller) in cahoots with the literally-bloodsucking Count. Eric’s weakness is his desire to provide material comforts for his wife and future family. Skuller plays upon the young man’s impecunity to secure his assistance in the Count’s relocation. The results are predictably tragic, though the moral has become a cliché.

            Citing the opening of Paradise Lost, Blake once suggested that Milton, being a true poet, was of the Devil’s party without knowing it. So it is with Gioia and Count Orlock. The most memorable poetry in the opera either describes the Count, who is unseen yet omnipresent in “Ellen’s Dream” (Act I, sc. 2), or is spoken by the Count himself, as in “Orlock’s Legacy” (Act I, sc. 3) and “Nosferatu’s Nocturne” (Act II, sc. 2). Here is the latter in full:

I am the image that darkens your glass,
The shadow that falls whenever you pass.
I am the dream you cannot forget,
The face you remember without having met.
I am the truth that must not be spoken,
The midnight vow that cannot be broken.
I am the bell that tolls out the hours.
I am the fire that warms and devours.
I am the hunger that you have denied,
The ache of desire piercing your side.
I am the sin you have never confessed,
The forbidden hand caressing your breast.
You’ve heard me inside you speak in your dreams,
Sigh in the ocean, whisper in streams.
I am the future you crave and you fear.
You know what I bring. Now I am here.

            Such simplicity, vigor, and lovely sound characterize most of the arias in Nosferatu. Act Two is further enriched by the Dies Irae, borrowed from the Catholic mass. The Latin text is cleverly interwoven with translation for the culturally-challenged. In the final scene Ellen sings the prayer Salve, Regina as she begs the protection of the Virgin Mary. Again translation aids the reader or hearer. The suspense of the finale hangs on whether, and how, that prayer will be answered.

            The libretto has a conventional narrative structure with three scenes in each of its two acts. The cast is comparatively small and the action contained to minimize the costs and complexity of stage production. Although effective in performance, Nosferatu is a meditative work with a strongly lyrical tendency. “Nosferatu’s Nocturne” and some other arias could easily be read on their own as lyric poems, while others are more tightly bound into the story.

            The meters of Giaoa’s arias vary, but the most common and characteristic measure is the loose, lilting tetrameter seen above. Between the arias much of the story unfolds in blank pentameter, with occasional rhymes and a great deal of assonance. Rhyme and off-rhyme are much more prevalent in the arias, but all the language in Nosferatu is highly musical, and clearly calculated to give composer and performers maximum scope for their own arts.

            In its book form, the libretto is bracketed by two essays. The first, by scholar Anne Williams, discusses the vampire as a figure of Romantic mythology, the homme fatal, who implicitly (though Ms. Williams does not quite say it) represents a harbinger of contemporary sexual role- reversals. The second, by the poet, is a brief history of libretto as an art-form, followed by a précis of his criteria for writing in the form, and an account of his collaboration with composer Alva Henderson. 

            In his closing essay Gioia also mentions his early fascination with the Murnau Nosferatu. As a poet, he must have found a special delight in putting words to the silent film he so admired in his youth. Recently I was fortunate enough to hear a partial concert performance of the opera at West Chester, Pennsylvania. While it is a pleasure to read the libretto, it is a revelation to hear how the words and music sing together.

            I look forward to seeing and hearing this work make its way around the world. Few new operas entered repertoire in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Nosferatu may be the first to win a place in the Twenty-First.