Review examines trio of pioneers in R.A.A.A.M.’s Silver

ERR’s review of R.A.A.A.M.’s new production Silver describes it as deeply musical, bringing together musicians Aino Tamm and Miina Härma with the fragile figure of poet Anna Haava. The review was originally published in Sirp.

The production was conceived by Karmen Mai Karus, with Heli Kaplinski and Iris Viru contributing ideas. Piret Jaaks wrote the text, Elina Pähklimägi directed, and Iir Hermeliin designed the set. The lighting was created by Priidu Adlas and the musical design by Tobias Tammearu. Maria Annus, Riina Maidre, Juuli Lill and Aarne Soro perform in the production, which premiered on July 24 at the barn of Kernu Manor.

The production’s musical quality comes not only from the singing during the performance. Two of its three central figures, Tamm and Härma, were professional musicians during their lifetimes, while Haava’s poetry is also filled with music. Härma and many other composers set more than 200 of Haava’s poems to music.

Haava was born near Lake Peipus, as was Juhan Liiv, who regarded music as the highest art. The review says the region appears to have had a special influence on these two major figures and founders of Estonian national poetry. Rather than translating or adapting German models, both created original works and developed from the country’s thin national cultural foundation.

Literary historian Tanar Kirs has said that Estonia’s own true poetry began with Liiv, the review notes, adding that the same can be said of Haava. The symbolic passing of the baton from Koidula, whose poetry was influenced by German verse, took place in the summer of 1886. Following Koidula’s death, the newspaper Postimees published Haava’s poem To Koidula under the pseudonym “An Estonian Girl”. It was Haava’s first published poem. Her poems later appeared under the pseudonym Anna Haava.

The two poets were also connected by an everyday paradox. When Haava was 75, late in her life, the city of Tartu gave her an apartment on Koidula Street.

The review analyses the production through the language of music, referring to its tempo, rhythm, dynamics and phrasing, as well as its changing combinations of performers, from solo performance to quartet. The dreamlike soundscape and beams of light falling on stylised birch trunks in the opening image establish an atmosphere of timelessness.

As the lights fade, a strange sound resembling the clatter of a typewriter emerges from the darkness. When the light slowly arrives, it becomes clear that Anna is producing the sound by writing forcefully in chalk on a board. Several large white boards allow her to express her calling, while Aino and Miina do so through singing.

Anna moves from one board to another in a creative surge, disappearing behind black wooden pillars between them. The movement conveys her quickness of thought, changes of spirit and fluctuations in mood. The L-shaped arrangement of the boards intensifies the effect, sometimes removing her entirely from the audience’s view.

The combination of boards whose writing is eventually erased and live music whose sounds fade into silence conveys the historical depth and ephemerality of the events depicted. The alternating white boards and black pillars resemble organ or piano keys, creating a visual link between the two principal art forms represented in the production.

Hermeliin’s set design is carefully considered. It is simple but effective.