ABSTRACT
The opera A Flowering Tree, composed by John Adams with a libretto by John Adams and Peter Sellars, premiered in 2006 at the Vienna Festival celebration of the 250-year anniversary of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The libretto – based on a South Indian women’s oral tale in the Kannada language (Ramanujan 1997; Narayan 2008) – tells the tale of Kamudha, a poor but lovely and graceful young woman, who marries a prince. Unlike the European Cinderella tale, most of the trouble begins after the marriage. A handsome young prince becomes fascinated by the beautiful Kamudha, who daily brings exquisitely fragrant blossoms to sell at the gates of his palace. He follows her home and spies upon her, witnessing her gift of being able to transform into a tree covered with the fragrant blossoms. With the assistance of her sister, she then turns back into her human form. He determines to marry her, and, used to getting his own way, he eventually prevails despite his mother’s reservations. The happiness of the newlyweds is joyous, and Kamudha, who grew up deferring to royalty, obeys her husband and turns into the tree whenever he wishes. This honeymoon is disrupted, however, after Kamudha naively agrees to perform her transformation for the amusement of the girls at court. The girls gather fragrant blossoms and in their excitement run off without carefully attending to the ritual required for Kamudha to complete her transformation back into human form. The princess is as an unrecognizable monstrosity, part-tree and part-human, unable to move or speak. She is cast into the gutter, and no one can locate the princess. Both the prince and the princess endure years of separation, suffering, and inner transformation. The princess survives through the compassion of other misfits, who wander from place to place. The prince wanders in a frenzied grief, becoming unrecognizable through his self-neglect. Outside a distant palace, Kamudha is fed by a kindhearted servant, who recognizes her inner beauty and brings her to live in the servant quarters. The prince, also at this palace, visiting his married sister, recognizes her and restores her to her fully human form. She and the prince are joyfully reunited, aware of the sacredness of her gift and of their union.
