Paul Bunyan is a "choral operetta" composed by Benjamin Britten with book and lyrics by W. H. Auden.
Britten and Auden had moved to the United States to escape the war in Europe; this operetta is something of a capsule summary of the history of their new home. It begins with a chorus of trees and geese and progresses to the arrival of lumberjacks organized by Paul Bunyan. By the second act, some of the lumberjacks have become farmers and by the e...
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Paul Bunyan is a "choral operetta" composed by Benjamin Britten with book and lyrics by W. H. Auden.
Britten and Auden had moved to the United States to escape the war in Europe; this operetta is something of a capsule summary of the history of their new home. It begins with a chorus of trees and geese and progresses to the arrival of lumberjacks organized by Paul Bunyan. By the second act, some of the lumberjacks have become farmers and by the end of the show, they are all members of industrial society.
The plot draws upon Auden's knowledge of the Eddas and begins with a creation story that uses the same idea of a giant being awakened by a primordial cow. Although Auden's tone is tongue-in-cheek, he seems to have intended the libretto to fill a gap in the American national consciousness and provide a national epic for them. The lukewarm reception that the work received may well have been due to the presumption of an Englishman writing the "missing" American national epic. The plot...
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