Events at the Ormond Bar
Dublin, 16 June 1904
Shortly before four in the afternoon. Two sirens are behind the bar at the Ormond Hotel. Bronze at Gold. Miss Lydia Douce and Miss Mina Kennedy. Summer heat outside; heat, in Irish terms.
Leopold Bloom, protagonist and Odysseus seeking his way to home port in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, is stranded in myth.
Since morning he has been travelling in a black suit (he had to attend a funeral in the morning), he is hot because of it.
The Sirens are still alone, drinking tea, telling each other stories that end in giggles and snorts. Behind the bar room is a dining room, next to it the saloon, where concerts sometimes take place and therefore there is also a grand piano. On it is a tuning fork that a blind young piano tuner forgot in the morning.
The setting for a chamber play where the actors of the Siren episode will shortly arrive, alone, in pairs.
Bloom wanders through the streets, looks in shop windows, lets his mind wander, has bought paper to write a letter. To Martha. Crosses Essex Bridge, feels hunger and appetite for a late lunch, and approaches (quite by accident?) Ormond Quay.
Simon Dedalus enters. Is charming to the barmaids, is served a grog and stuffs his pipe with “Mermaid” brand tobacco.
Lenehan arrives, looking for Blazes Boylan and with news of the horse races. Four o’clock, he had said. Is it four already?
And then Blazes Boylan, the impresario – and lover – Molly Blooms -, with the fine creaky shoes, swoops in for a jump and quick drink. The sirens behind the bar, Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy, bring out their charms; a bit of leg, a garter with acoustic qualities, a rose at the cleavage.
When in fact Blazes is on his way to a rendezvous with Molly. Which Bloom also knows. And just now sees Boylan driving by in his carriage. And is encouraged by Richie Goulding, who has run into him by chance, to have dinner together in the Ormond Bar. Where Blazes Boylan pours himself ale and sloe syrup.
The piano in the saloon is freshly tuned for the smoking concert. Mister Dedalus is joined here by Ben Dollard and Father Cowley. The one formerly a celebrated tenor in Dublin, the other formerly devoted to the spiritual, now more to earthly pleasures. The latter lets us hear a few bars from Don Giovanni, they reminisce together about past opera performances and that unforgettable evening when Dollard acutely bought black trousers for a concert performance in the shop of the so attractive Molly Bloom. Simon Dedalus sings – in a still beautiful voice – “M’appari” from Flotwo’s opera “Martha”.
In the dining room, Pat, the Ormond’s hard-of-hearing waiter, waits for guests Bloom and Goulding. At the bar, George Lidwell, lawyer and gentleman, drinks his Guiness devotionally tapped by Bronze and Gold. The clock has already struck four. Boylan hurries off on creaking soles, Lenehan following in his slipstream. Leonhard Bloom at the table hears the clock, hears the piano, hears the men singing, hears Blazes Boylan’s carriage ringing off and knows that he is on his way to his – Bloom’s – house, to Molly, his – Bloom’s – wife. Watches the competitor, suffers sensitively, fearfully, close to tears. And sits down to liver with bacon and cider. He writes the letter to Marthe later, including a few insinuations that do not dispel his grief.
Simon Dedalus sings “The Croppy Boy” in the saloon – the ballad of the young freedom fighter who let himself be deceived by a false priest and found death for Ireland. The blind piano tuner approaches groping, his tuning fork lying forgotten on the grand piano. Martha, the faithless Molly and thoughts of loss and betrayal run through Bloom’s mind as he watches Miss Douce lustily polishing the tap at the alehouse. The Ormond Bar is filled with loud applause for Mister Dedalus and his performance as Bloom decides to leave.
Barely on the street, he must take flight into pretended study of displays to avoid meeting Bridie Kellie (and thus the memory of her venal labours of love, which he may well have appreciated before). Noisily, a tram passes by. Just at the right moment to let the wind, stirred by the cider, drive unheard from Bloom’s bowels.
Dublin, 16 June 1904, five o’clock in the afternoon.
Return to Pocket Opera Festival 2015 “Sirens”
