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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre focuses heavily on the development of the protago- nist’s voice, as the reader can trace the young Jane’s transition from a vulnerable gothic heroine to an authoritative autobiographical narrator. Film adaptations of the novel often fail to convey this transition due to the inability of the film-maker to successfully incorporate Jane’s narration into the piece. Two recent musical versions of Jane Eyre present interesting solutions to this problem; the ability to layer voices through song, along with the potential for musical commentary as opposed to voice-over, allows for innovative approaches to rectifying the problems regarding Jane’s narration in other media. However, although the stage musical version by John Caird and Paul Gordon and the chamber opera adaptation by Michael Berkeley and David Malouf both attempt to preserve Jane’s narrative authority, the writers are unable to fully capture the novelistic nuances of the heroine’s development from abused orphan to omniscient storyteller.

The opening chapters of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre establish the contra- dictory tensions which seem to dominate the entire novel, for as Jane interacts with the Reed family there is a sense of both aversion and longing on the part of the heroine: she is repelled by her cousins’ behaviour, but she simultaneously desires their approval. The depiction of Jane’s contra- dictory feelings towards the Reeds seems the perfect way to begin a novel which presents the reader with so many incongruous themes and ideas: marriage versus independence; passion versus asceticism; religion versus idolatry. The very form of the novel is itself paradoxical, as the gothic romance is tempered by the realistic and autobiographical narrative voice of the heroine. This specific contradiction between romance and autobiography is perhaps the most enticing clash in the novel, though it is important to note that these two elements of the story are not set in complete opposi- tion to one another. Rather, they are both essential components of Bronte’s text. In an article on doubling in Jane Eyre, Robyn Warhol asserts that ‘the two genres are not so much in competition as in continuous oscillation with each other, serving to double each other at crucial moments’ (Warhol 1996: 858). This doubling, particularly in its relationship to the depiction of the main character, seems inherently novelistic; a reader can perceive and appreciate the developmental relationship between Jane the character and Jane the narrator in a way that would not be possible in any other medium. Nevertheless, the contrasts between Jane Eyre: gothic hero- ine, and Jane Eyre: autobiographer, provide a particularly interesting lens

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through which to examine the novel when one considers the popularity of this story in other media. Jane Eyre remains one of the most heavily adapted novels in literary history, and the number of film and stage versions of Jane’s story is staggering.

Anyone seeking to adapt Jane Eyre for stage or screen faces significant difficulties, however. It seems almost impossible to capture the subtle nuances in the relationship between the gothic romance and the heroine’s autobiography through any medium besides the novel. For obvious rea- sons, the romance plot seems infinitely more suitable for visual adapta- tions, and indeed, though most film and stage versions of Jane Eyre try to integrate some of Jane’s narration through the use of voice-over, most of her autobiography is forfeited. The excision of Jane’s autobiographical reflections is understandable: visual media cannot convey the incremental development of Jane’s narrative authority in the same way that it is pre- sented in the text. Nevertheless, this excision leaves the heroine incom- plete. While the viewer can still appreciate Jane’s journey from abused orphan to happily married heiress, the true scope of her maturation is imperfect without the constant presence of her voice.

Two recent stage adaptations of the novel have complicated the ques- tion of whether or not an adaptor can successfully incorporate both incar- nations of Jane into his particular version of the text. In 2000, an operatic version of Jane Eyre written by Michael Berkeley was produced in the United Kingdom, with a libretto by David Malouf. That same year, a stage musical version of Bronte’s novel, with a book by John Caird and music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, debuted on Broadway. Like all adaptations of Bronte’s novel, these two versions of the text must grapple with the duality of Jane’s story, but the fact that music is an integral element in both of these adap- tations opens up new possibilities for resolving the tensions between romance and autobiographical narrative.

Before proceeding with an analysis of these two musicals, it is useful to consider the centrality of the development of Jane’s narrative voice to Bronte’s novel, particularly in the context of Gerard Genette’s arguments on the relationship between the first-person narrator and the representation of his or her younger self. Typically in a bildungsroman narrated in the first- person voice ‘we […] expect to see the narrative bring its hero to the point where the narrator awaits him, in order that these two hypostases might meet and finally merge’ (Genette 1980: 226). Genette asserts that there is usually some point in the text where the hero has, through experience and understanding, developed into a person capable of taking on the role of the storyteller: ‘The narrator’s last sentence is when – is that – the hero finally reaches his first’ (Genette 1980: 227). Genette adamantly insists that the two separate versions of the single fictional character do not work together to tell the story, as it is inconceivable for them to both reach the ‘end’ at the same time. The autobiographical nature of the novel means that the narra- tive is presented retrospectively; the narrator’s ‘narrative time’ can commence only after the hero’s ‘story time’ has concluded.

Throughout Jane Eyre, the ability to tell one’s own story is consistently linked to empowerment, and Jane learns to appreciate this power early on in the text; Carla Kaplan cites Jane’s stinging rebuke of Mrs Reed following their meeting with Mr Brocklehurst as a resolution ‘to narrate her own story,

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to explain and vindicate her life, to exercise her voice’ (Kaplan 1996: 5). Though the young Jane is extremely vulnerable, she is able to attain a taste of narrative power at a young age, which is something she carries with her all through the story and up to its conclusion. Throughout the novel, the reader can detect that the younger Jane is making a progression from protagonist to storyteller; the fact that she is constantly being asked to tell her life story is a significant detail in the text. As a character, Jane repeats her biography, or at least parts of it, for Mr Lloyd, Helen Burns, Miss Temple, Mr Rochester and the Rivers siblings. Consequently, Jane’s skills at recounting the story of her life have already been established before she finally adopts the formal position of autobiographical narrator.

By the end of chapter 37, the reader realizes that Jane has completed her development from protagonist to narrator, for her trials have con- cluded and she has overcome her reservations about her relationship with Rochester. At the very end of this chapter, when Jane decides not to tell Rochester that she heard him calling her across the moors, the line between character and narrator has been blurred:

I listened to Mr Rochester’s narrative, but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communi- cated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must neces- sarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart.

(Bronte 1996: 437)

Just as Jane the narrator decides to skip over her years at Lowood when recounting her life story to the reader, Jane the character decides to skip over this gothic experience when speaking with Rochester. Part of the nar- rator’s power is her ability to be selective in the telling of her story. It there- fore seems fitting that Jane asserts such power shortly after she has attained the financial independence which has eluded her for the entire novel. Jane’s unexpected fiscal empowerment prepares her for the role of story- teller. The fact that narrative authority emerges from character authority in the final chapters of the novel makes it clear that, despite the obvious contrasts between the two main threads of Jane Eyre, both the gothic love story and the realistic autobiographical narrative are essential to the piece.

The timelessness of Jane Eyre is at least partially attributable to the clas- sic appeal of an underdog story, as Jane’s transformation from a vulnerable orphan into a happily married heiress is a celebration of the heroine’s strength and endurance. The true power of Jane’s story lies in the protag- onist’s narrative voice, however. While it is fitting to celebrate the happy ending that Jane attains for herself in the novel’s final chapters, the most important element of Jane’s new found authority is that it reinforces the idea that she is ready to make the transition from heroine to storyteller: a heroine has little control over what happens to her over the course of the narrative, particularly in a gothic romance where she is constantly being acted upon by outside forces. Conversely, a narrator exercises supreme control over the narrative. While film and stage versions of Jane Eyre can

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Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre

easily chronicle Jane’s transformation from orphan to heiress, highlighting the development of her narrative authority is more difficult. Though voice- over is a convenient tool for including parts of Jane’s narrative, to overuse this device would undoubtedly frustrate viewers as the non-synchronous voice would distract from the action taking place rather than supple- menting it.

As mentioned, the two recent musical adaptations of Bronte’s novel create new opportunities for the inclusion of Jane’s narrative voice. While the idea of Jane singing parts of her narration is enticing, even more entic- ing is the ability of a composer to layer different voices through music, as this technique presents a chance for the viewer to come to a true appreci- ation of the connections between Jane the heroine and Jane the narrator. Furthermore, the presence of the orchestra in both the musical and oper- atic versions of the novel allows for a more dynamic form of narrative commentary than the kind provided by voice-over. However, while both musical adaptations attempt to balance Jane’s gothic adventures with her interior development into the role of the narrator, both must sacrifice part of the heroine’s autonomy in the process. Neither the Caird musical nor the Berkeley opera grant Jane the full authority that Bronte bestows upon her in the book: Caird’s Jane is incapable of successfully articulating the feelings of the other characters to the audience, while Berkeley’s Jane can present only her memories as opposed to a concrete analysis of her life story. In the end, both of these musical adaptations reinforce the difficul- ties of trying to integrate successfully the subtle nuances of Bronte’s auto- biographical narrative with the more overtly entertaining gothic romance. At the same time, the musical scores incorporated into both of these adap- tations present interesting means by which to try and merge these sharp incongruities.

Transforming novels into stage musicals is a notoriously difficult endeav- our, and the inspiration for some of the greatest musicals of the twentieth century has not been novels, but rather plays: Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion served as the model for Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (1956), Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was the inspiration for Bernstein and Sondheim’s West Side Story (1957), and Wilder’s The Matchmaker preceded Herman’s Hello, Dolly! (1964). In their book on writing for musical the- atre, Allen Cohen and Steven L. Rosenhaus point out that dramatic works, such as films or other plays, are usually better sources for musical adapta-

tion than non-dramatic works like novels: ‘In literary fiction […] much of

what the main characters experience is internal – psychological and emotional – which makes it extremely difficult to translate into theatrical terms. Some internal monologues, of course, can be translated into solo songs, but to have more than a couple of them in a show would create monotony’ (Cohen and Rosenhaus 2006: 52). Cohen and Rosenhaus’s text underscores the difficulties in adapting a novel like Jane Eyre for the musical stage, as Jane Eyre is a highly internalized novel; the action is lim- ited, and far more emphasis is placed on the thoughts and feelings of the characters than on their experiences. This limited scope makes it difficult to avoid the ‘monotony’ that Cohen warns of in his text; since Jane is the centre of the novel, most of the songs must revolve around her, and yet it is both impractical and impossible to have her sing the entire score.

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Moreover, unlike many Victorian novels, the number of central characters in Jane Eyre is surprisingly small. Whereas the multi-plot novels of Thackeray and Eliot feature a wide variety of lead characters as well as a large sup- porting cast, Jane Eyre is built almost entirely around two individuals, which makes it difficult to produce a chorus. Once again, this creates musical problems: most musicals alternate between solos, duets and larger numbers involving some type of ensemble. Such variation is difficult to achieve when adapting a novel with such a limited number of characters.

Despite the composer and librettist’s best efforts to overcome these dif- ficulties, several critics could not overlook the fact that Bronte’s novel seemed fundamentally incompatible with the conventions of musical theatre. Charles Isherwood of Variety contrasted Caird and Gordon’s musical with several successful musical adaptations of nineteenth-century novels, including Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables (1980) and Lionel Bart’s Oliver! (1960):

While the appeal of the Dickens and Hugo books resides in their larger-than-life characters and relentless plotting, the allure of Bronte’s novel is a more deli- cate thing; it’s a matter of sensibility. Jane Eyre draws the reader directly into the bruised heart of its embattled heroine – psychological immediacy, not narrative potency, is the key to its appeal, and that’s not easily translated into dramatic terms.

(Isherwood 2000: 34)

For Isherwood, the autobiographical narrative supersedes the gothic romance in terms of overall importance, but the autobiography is far more difficult to adapt for the stage; thus, Caird and Gordon seemed doomed to fail before they even started work on this project. Clifford Ridley of The

Philadelphia Inquirer also found the subject matter to be limiting in terms of

its musical adaptability:

It’s hard to find the tonal variety required for good music theater in Bronte’s gothic romance about an orphaned young woman who becomes tutor to the ward of the reclusive Edward Rochester [...] Focused firmly on the principals, the narrative contains little action, provides little excuse for a chorus, and leaves little room for humor.

(Ridley 2000: E03)

Ridley’s comments on a lack of ‘tonal variety’ reinforce the limitations of the source material in terms of its overall musicality. Jane Eyre is an espe- cially solemn novel: it is difficult to imagine the characters singing any- thing except slow and sober ballads. Since the potential for musical variation in an adaptation of Jane Eyre is almost nonexistent, Caird’s pro- tagonist, despite her dynamic roles as both heroine and narrator, is sur- prisingly flat from a musical standpoint. Almost all of her songs are written in 4/4 time and set to the tempo of a ballad. The result of there being so little variation between the songs is that none of the musical numbers is particularly memorable. By confining Jane to only one style of music, Gordon reduces her overall vitality and, simultaneously, weakens the show’s score. Though the musical received praise for its cast and its

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Hear Jane sing: narrative authority in two musical versions of Jane Eyre

staging, few critics felt that it would last on Broadway, and the show closed after only 209 performances.

Despite the failure of the musical to attain popular success, Caird and Gordon deserve a great deal of praise for their attempts to preserve the novel’s integrity while adapting it for the stage. In the preface to the musi- cal’s libretto, Caird stresses that the creative team worked tirelessly to try and incorporate both the gothic romance and the autobiography into the musical: ‘while we accord the relationship between Jane and Rochester the central place in our adaptation, we begin where Charlotte begins with Jane’s early childhood’ (Caird and Gordon 2000: i). The play’s opening scenes stress Jane’s role as narrator, as the older Jane appears onstage and watches her younger self interact with the Reeds and, later, the residents of Lowood School. Through song, ‘Jane herself narrates the drama while the story concerns her life as a little girl’ (Caird and Gordon 2000: iv). Though the Lowood section of the novel is significantly condensed in Caird’s adaptation, the creative team imaginatively emphasizes the links between the young heroine Jane and the older, more mature narrator, and, in one of the musical’s most striking moments, the two incarnations of Jane actually sing together at the grave of Helen Burns:

Let the world forsake me Let them do their worst, I will Withstand it all

They will not break me

There is another world that watches us I’m not afraid

The angels know when we have sinned Or we have been betrayed

(Caird and Gordon 2000: 20)

This short but moving song presents a musical variation on Genette’s the- ories regarding the gradual merging between the heroine and the narrator: Caird and Gordon use the duet to stress the fact that certain lessons Jane learned as a child have been preserved into her adulthood. Furthermore, this is the first time that young Jane sings in the entire play, and it is fitting that her first song is a duet with her older self. The audience is made aware of the fact that the young heroine’s journey from abused orphan to independent woman will be complemented by her developmental journey into the role of the narrator.

Unfortunately, Jane’s role as the narrator is quickly reduced. As soon as the young Jane grows up, older Jane steps into the role of heroine, and

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