Notes from the Author: An Interview with Margaret Atwood
Matthew Shilvock: As author of some of the most iconic, thoughtfully constructed works of literature, what has it felt like to experience your work taking on its own life, being adapted by others for stage or screen?
Margaret Atwood: I’ve done adaptations myself, so know some of the pitfalls. I’ve had some adaptations that didn’t catch fire – we won’t mention those – and some that have really been well-done, exciting, and impactful. It’s partly luck – adaptations are made by teams, not individuals, and if the team is good, the adaptation has a chance. But films, television series, ballets, and operas are their own art forms and have to succeed on those terms. You can’t expect them to be novels, which are made entirely of words.
Shilvock: How readily did you agree to give the rights for an operatic Handmaid’s Tale?
Atwood: I was in Copenhagen doing book promo, and the tall Danish composer, Poul Ruders, went down on his knees to me on the bright red carpet of the Hotel d’Angleterre. He said, “I’ve been given a commission by the Royal Danish Opera Company – the first one they’ve given in 34 years. I have to do The Handmaid’s Tale! I must do The Handmaid’s Tale! If I can’t do The Handmaid’s Tale, I don’t want to do any opera at all!” I thought, “Either this man is a lunatic and the opera will be bad and will disappear, or he is a visionary and a genius, and it will be good. What’s to lose? Roll the dice!” And so I did.
Shilvock: What do you feel the art-form of opera has uniquely brought to this story?
Atwood: Opera – I include its children, operetta and musical comedy – is the only art form that’s musical, visual, and dramatic all at the same time. It was the cinema of its day, and attracted audiences both high-society and low. Composers in the 19th century churned out operas like B movies, and they could cause riots. Many think of opera now as rather staid, but that is not its origin. It delights me that The Handmaid’s Tale opera has brought back some of that boundary-pushing. It’s the only opera in which you will hear a beautiful yearning aria on the subject of the menstrual cycle, just for instance.
Shilvock: In the book, you quote Amazing Grace as part of Offred’s inner dialogue, as she reflects on this now-outlawed music that she can only sing in her head. Poul Ruders incorporates Amazing Grace evocatively into the opera as a tune that speaks both for a lost world, and also organized religion – a lyrical foil against the acerbic chill of Gilead. How do you imagine Gilead in terms of music? Is it a very quiet place, or are there pockets of music making still happening?
Atwood: Well, let us consider Amazing Grace and why it is outlawed in Gilead. It was written by a former slave-trader who became an abolitionist, and it sings about being lost and then found, and being saved, and having fear relieved. So, like the Bible itself – censored and re-written in Gilead – it can be read either as a symbol of “organized religion” or a disrupter of the kind of religion we see in Gilead. Christianity has always had a radical side to it. The workers’ movements of the 30s were often led by preachers. And need we mention Martin Luther King?
As for Gilead, like all totalitarianisms it censors, but uses, music – particularly on its state-controlled TV religious programs.
Shilvock: Do you think that The Testaments would lend itself to an operatic treatment?
Atwood: Of course. It has a conflicted and secretive central character (mezzo) who has had a change of heart and is constantly in danger, plus three young women in peril (two sopranos and an alto), a villain (or two) (baritone?), and the possibilities for a full chorus. What’s not to like?
I am a big fan of Dialogues of the Carmelites – just to give an example of how this kind of material – inner religious dialogue in an atmosphere of danger and violence – can be handled.