Stilla, torevêret og rugda sitt språk: Musikken i Vesaas' Fuglane

This article is a reflection over the process of making an opera-libretto on the basis of a novel (Tarjei Vesaas: The Birds). The most straightforward method would be to concentrate on the plot, which can be transferred quite easily from novel to opera. But for the music to be more than an underlining and enforcement of events in the plot, the librettist must read the novel in a more advanced way to grip the dimensions of the text. What kind of rooms are opened in the text, what is accentuated or, conversely, played down in the text, and what is connected to fear, hope, fellowship or isolation? And above all: Where does the text open up for phenomena that lie at the borders of what everyday language can say? In the Vesaas novel, the Bird motif, the secret language of the woodcock, plays a major part. It is precisely in the secret, almost unutterable language of the bird that we can find the bridge over to the music. This insight leads into a reflection upon the nature of language in a broader perspective. Language is far more than empirical claims about the world; speech consists of acts and signs that go beyond only pointing to facts in the world. Literary language can be as objectless as music, pointing to itself, and it can at this point have the strongest force.