Tasher Desh is one of Tagore's most famous dance operas, a unique genre he developed that was influenced by Western opera.

FIPA's full-length version for all ages brings to life the glorious textures and opulence of India 's rich heritage. It is performed with English narration and sung in Bengali.

Tagore in England 1879

SYNOPSIS

A Prince, tired of suffocating in his palace, goes in search of adventure. Accompanied by a far more conventional travelling companion, a Merchant, the mismatched pair get shipwrecked in the Land of Cards . Here the inhabitants are playing cards, well regulated and devoid of emotions. With the wild force of his personality, the Prince starts to effect change in the Cards and gradually their human qualities begin to emerge…

Scene 1 The Palace

The opening song describes gusty winds and a terrible impeding storm. The fearless must march on with the wind of change across a sea of despair. We are transported to a palace. A Prince, exasperated by the tedium of his surroundings, longs to go in search of adventure. The Merchant tries to dissuade him against this and asks Patrolekha, a foreign captive princess, to fathom the Prince's Heart. The Royal Mother appears and implores him not to go but to no avail. Realising she will lose him if she restrains him, she gives her son her blessing. With joy, he departs with the Merchant. But misfortune strikes and they are soon shipwrecked.

Scene 2 The Land of Cards

The Prince and Merchant find themselves in a strange land where the inhabitants are playing cards. Ruled by the King and Queen with a superior class of Jack the Keeper and Mr. 10 the Teacher, they live highly regulated lives. Mr. 5 and Mr. 6 challenge the new arrivals. The bemused Prince has stumbled upon his mission - to inject chaos into a lifeless society. When the Court arrives, the Prince and Merchant perform a mocking dance of praise causing much anger. But before long, the Prince has completely enchanted the Queen and other women, sparking them into a sudden burst of revolt. In fear and consternation, the King dismisses the Court.

Scene 3 Inner Chambers of the Card Princesses

Inspired by the Prince, Ms. Ace and Ms. Spade are confiding in each other about the odd feelings they are experiencing. All of a sudden, Ms. Clubs appears, catching them unawares. Ms. Ace and Ms. Spade try to conceal their emotions but to their amazement, it transpires that Ms. Clubs has already taken the decision to renounce her life as a card.

Scene 4 The Garden

In the garden, Ms. Heart is plucking flowers whilst the Prince is teaching her to dance. Tears fill her eyes for the first time. She is accosted by Mr. Diamond who informs her that she is being summoned by the Court. But willfulness and disobedience overcomes her and she shares sensitive feelings with Mr. Diamond instead. They recall previous lives, rich and full in comparison with their present meaningless existence. All around the Prince has triggered change. The card Princesses are transforming. Mr. 5 and Mr. 6 are humming. Stirred to action, Ms. Heart and Mr. Diamond pledge that they will become free.

Scene 5 By the River Bank

Feeling far from settled, Mr. 5 and Mr. 6 question the regulations of their land and are confused. They are apprehended by Mr. 10. He reproaches them and reinforces the rules. Ms. Heart enters and to the despair of Mr. 10 incites rebellion.

Scene 6 Inner Chambers of the Card Princesses

Ms. 10 confesses to Ms. Ace and Ms. Spades her secret desire to become human. They realise that they have been imprisoned by their society and to humanise themselves is far more pleasant. But in order for that to happen, they will also have to experience sorrow. Tears begin to roll down their cheeks.

Scene 7 The Royal Court

The Court assembles under the Neem tree. The King is disturbed. He smells strange flowers and unfamiliar birds. The Queen will not stay indoors and the courtiers, having removed their regulation attire, are unrecognisable. The Rule of the Whim is manifest. The King, exasperated, banishes the Queen. As she complies, he caves in. The collapse of the card kingdom is complete. In a final ode to freedom and liberation, all celebrate the Prince's successful mission.

Tagore and Gandhi in Shantiniketan 1940

ABOUT TASHER DESH

Tagore was inspired by Alice in Wonderland and Western opera when he wrote Tasher Desh. It is a satirical portrayal of a society ruled by strict conventions and a veiled criticism of the British Raj.

Set in a seemingly naïve context, a heroic stereotype, embodied by a Prince, thirsts for adventure and the challenge of the unknown. He is flung into a land of childlike imagination. That Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland inspired the characters in the Land of Cards , is no coincidence. Here the rigid metaphor of the cards beautifully encapsulates the sterility of caste, class and regulation. And only the wild, unfettered chaotic nature of the Prince can demolish this arthritic rigidity and compel effective change.

The music of Tasher Desh is a stylistic blend of Indian classical music ragas and Western opera unique to Tagore and known as Rabindra Sangeet. Written in Bengali, FIPA's production has the dialogue performed in English but keeps the original language for the songs. Tagore wrote the script and lyrics. He also composed the melodies of the songs and, in keeping with Indian tradition, musicians improvise round the songs during live performances. The lyrics are poetically penned and are rendered in a span of songs from the emotively soulful to spirited and uplifting. His songs are the most established genre of Indian music apart from Indian film songs that have been influenced by Western music.

Tasher Desh was written in Shantiniketan. Shantidev Ghosh, the premier musician, who was personally trained by Tagore, remembers that in August 1933, Pratima Devi, Tagore's daughter-in-law, a trained dance exponent, had an idea for a dance opera. She asked Ghosh to show her brief outline to Tagore whom she hoped he would correct. Three days later, Tagore produced a script which became the first manuscript of Tasher Desh.

The work was a combination of Devi's concept, Tagore's 1898 short story Ekti Ashare Golpa (One Absurd Story) and his poem Banijye Boshoti Lakshmi (The Goddess of Wealth Dwells in Business Deals), lyrics of which were used in the Prince's first three songs.

So enthusiastic was Tagore about the work that he set aside another piece he was working on, Chandalika, to concentrate on Tasher Desh. He cast men in the male characters and women in the female, a radical idea as women then were hardly ever allowed to perform publicly. Indeed, it is the character of the Queen of Cards who leads the changes in the lifeless society.

Tagore was extremely adaptive in his creative process. He rewrote parts of the production in response to changing casts of actors and dancers for different shows. When it became clear that the artists were unable to sustain the lethargic style he was after and assumed a regimented manner instead, he altered the script accordingly to accommodate them.

Pratima Devi choreographed much of the dances in the first production. A pioneer with a wide experience in European modern dance, Indian classical and folk dance, she was instrumental in the fusion style of the piece. Initially Manipuri ( Bengal ) style was combined with folk dance forms and Western Dance. Later Kathakali (Kerala) and Kandy ( Sri Lanka ) forms were included in the mix with European dancing for the cards before they transformed into humans. The more experimental elements were used only in the solos and not in group dances as the choreography proved to be too challenging.

Rama Devi, Head of Music at the Sangeet Bhavan, led the musical team. Singers accompanied the dancers such as Nandita Devi as Miss Ace, although some characters like Miss Heart was performed by Amala Devi, a singer taught by Tagore. Dinendranath Tagore (Tagore's brother wrote the music notation because Tagore himself was unable to write musical scores).

Nandalal Bose, Head of the Art Department at Viswa Bharati, was the first Indian artist to explore graphics for creative purposes rather than for decorative value. Responsible for the props and sets, he experimented with an inspired mix of batik, leather and coloured cloth. His combinations of bold colours worked well in the poor stage lighting conditions of the time.

Pramita Devi also designed the costumes of the female characters for the first performance using Balinese and Javanese costumes. As these proved problematic for the dancers, they were later modified into more typical Shantiniketan sari style with batik drapes and cardboard card attires.

The first production of Tasher Desh in 1933 at the Madane Theatre (now Elite Cinema) in Kolkata, was only 75 minutes long in two scenes. By the second set of performances in Mumbai, more dances had been added. Tagore himself wrote in a letter ‘….Tasher Desh was better than Shapmochan (another dance opera), and that was I think because there was a marvellous parallelism of romance and realism in Tasher Desh ….'.

In 1938 during the birthday celebrations of Tagore in Shantiniketan, swingeing changes were made with new dialogue, songs and characters with the work expanded into four scenes with eight new songs. There were no more changes after the performances in Kolkata in 1939.

Shantidev Ghosh always played the Prince in Tagore's lifetime. Considered the greatest exponent of Tagore's music and dance in his time, he came to Shantiniketan when he was one and lived there for the rest of his 89 years, dedicating his entire life to Tagore. Sent to train in South India for Kathakali and Sri Lanka for Kandy dance, his choreography of his role in Tasher Desh was shaped by these styles. In 1930 he was appointed a music teacher in Vishva Bharati, becoming Director of the Sangeet Bhavan in 1939 and Principal in 1945. He received many awards and has left a legacy of numerous books on dance, music and Tagore.

About Tagore

‘ The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.' 

India 's foremost literary figure, Tagore was born in Kolkata, India, into a wealthy and artistic Brahmon family. A pioneer, radical visionary and inspirational renaissance man , it was a confluence of three cultures: Hindu, Mohammedan, and British which was instrumental in forging his creative genius. Not only a great poet, he was also a celebrated short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist, composer and painter. When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 he became Asia 's first Nobel laureate, achieving international fame as an artist of world stature. The respect South Asians have of Tagore lie in the legacy of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh which were written and composed by him.

Tagore first came to England in 1878 when he went to public school in Brighton . The following year, he enrolled at University College London to study law but went home in 1980 before he finished his course. When he returned in 1912, his own English translations of his poems, Gitanjali, bowled over poets Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats, who became a great champion of his poems. He was an instant sensation in London literary circles who, with his flowing beard and Indian robes, perceived him as a great mystic of the East. Tagore went on world lecture tours to promote inter-cultural harmony and understanding. By 1935, the British adoration had soured into sharp criticism, but not before he was knighted by King George V in 1915.

L iving during the time of the British Raj, Tagore was critical of European imperialism and support ed the Indian Independence Movement. After the Amritsar massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators by British troops he renounced his knighthood in 1919.

In 1890, Tagore had begun to manage his family's vast estates in Shilaidaha, now in Bangladesh . He was overwhelmed by the social, economic and political deprivations in the villages. His thoughts turned to the problems of education and he started his first teaching experiments in the area.

He was a great believer in self-help and intellectual advancement of the masses as "there can be no question of blind revolution, but of steady and purposeful education". In 1918, he laid the foundation stone of Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal ‘where the world becomes one nest'. This was later renamed Shantiniketan a centre for rural reconstruction, and an international university, to "'free village(s) from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance' by ‘vitalis(ing) knowledge'. He pioneered the global village concept that integrated music, dance, drama, arts, physical exercise and academic studies to provide a well rounded education for children. Much of his income was diverted into funding the school he established.

He abhorred India 's ‘abnormal caste consciousness', and lectured on its evils, writing poems and dramas with ‘untouchable' leading characters. His works were what he called ‘the play of feeling and not of action' and he wrote about a wide range of Bengali lifestyles, particularly village life.

His incessant travels took him to over thirty countries in all five continents where he met with many artists, philosophers, scientists and political leaders.

In 1921, he dedicated Visva-Bharati to the Indian people. It was built on an atmosphere that was an extension of his own family environment. Tagore wrote that in his adolescence, a 'cascade of musical emotion' gushed forth daily. 'We felt we would try to test everything,' he writes, 'and no achievement seemed impossible...We wrote, we sang, we acted, we poured ourselves out on every side.' Visva-Bharati was a centre of the arts, a place of subconscious learning with little in the way of formal instruction. In Tagore's philosophy of education, the aesthetic development of the senses was as important as the intellect and music, literature, art, dance and drama were given great prominence in the daily life of the school.

Students became involved in what was being created by Tagore and other resident artists in an organic way, learning in an environment that was close to nature. They were encouraged to create their own publications, perform and produce Tagore's dramas, most of which were written there. Tagore revived folk dances and music, and was one of the first to support the bringing together of different forms of Indian dance such as Manipuri, Kathak and Kathakali. 

Opposed to nationalism and militarism, Tagore tirelessly promoted spiritual values and the creation of a new world culture founded in multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance, combining the best of traditional Hindu education with Western ideals in Visva Bharati as an alternative to the British system of education. Tagore was an inspiration to many, including Count Hermann Keyserling of Estonia who founded his School of Wisdom in 1920 patterned upon Tagore's school.

In 1922, Tagore met the son of Yorkshire parson in New York , an architect and agricultural economist Lenoard Elmhirst. Elmhirst became Tagore's agricultural adviser, helping him set up Shantiniketan and traveling the world with him. Tagore's progressive vision for a new world culture shaped ideas Elmhirst's Dartington experience, an educational experiment that sought to integrate art and culture with science and agriculture and in so doing, to regenerate the rural economy.

ARTISTIC TEAM Tagore with wife Mrinalini Devi in 1883

Cast in order of appearance

Production

Music and Narration recorded at SOAS, University of London

Additional information can be found on www.fipa.org.uk

Tagore in Hampstead 1912