The Canterville Ghost

Scene 1
Virginia and Cheshire, now old, are surrounded by three generations of descendants at Sir Simon’s gravesite. They explain to the youngest ones that Sir Simon was really a ghost, and that Virginia, seventy years before, had led him to peace.

Scene 2
We are at Canterville Chase seventy years earlier. Canterville welcomes the Otis family, who have just bought the Chase from him, and warns them about the ghost of Sir Simon. Their twin sons take the news with glee, their daughter Virginia with sympathy for the ghost, and they themselves with Yankee aplomb. Mrs. Otis notices a red stain on a suit of armor upstage. Canterville explains that it is the blood of Sir Simon’s brother-in-law, murdered by him on the spot three centuries before. The stain cannot be removed. “Nonsense!” proclaims Otis. He produces a jar of Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover, and scrubs the stain away. Thunder and lightning. Otis remarks on the English weather. Canterville invites all to call him in case of need, and takes his leave.

Scene 3
The family comes down to the same room three mornings later. The stain has reappeared, after being scrubbed away, for three days in a row—and twice with the door locked in between. Mrs. Otis opines that it might be the ghost after all. Otis agrees, and suggests that it would be only fair for the ghost to pay them rent. He will write a letter to the firm of Myers and Padmore on the matter, and draft an article on the Permanence of Sanguinous Stains when Connected to Crime. All proceed to breakfast.

Scene 4
Midnight in an upstairs corridor. Moaning and clanking of chains. Enter the ghost as he drags the chains to the door of the master bedroom. Otis opens the door, and insists politely that the ghost must oil his chains, as sleep would otherwise be impossible. He gives the ghost a bottle of the Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator for that purpose, and closes the door. The ghost, howling with indignation, dashes the bottle to the floor, and lurches back the way he came. The twins emerge, and whiz pillows past his head. He flees, and tumbles down the stairs as they jump up and down.

Scene 5
The ghost, in his room immediately after, rages against the Otises, lists his artistic triumphs in terrifying the high and mighty over three centuries, and vows revenge.

Scene 6
All are at breakfast next morning in the dining room. Otis is disappointed that the ghost has not accepted the lubricator. The firm of Myers and Padmore has assured him that if the ghost does not oil his chains, Otis would be quite justified in taking them from him, or in proceeding with eviction on ground of nuisance, as well as non-payment of rent. He hopes that this step will not be necessary, considering the ghost’s long residence in the house, and chides the twins, to their merriment, for throwing pillows at his head. Mrs. Otis agrees.

Scene 7
Midnight in the upstairs corridor again. Enter the ghost, moaning as before, but this time wearing the suit of armor rather than the chains as he shambles to the door. This time it is Mrs. Otis who opens it. If his problem is indigestion, as she fears, the ghost will find Dr. Dobell’s Tincture an excellent remedy; performing artists such as himself owe the public due attention to their health. She hands him a phial of the tincture, and closes the door. The twins ambush him with pea-shooters as he retreats, and he tumbles down the stairs as before.

Scene 8
Again the ghost inveighs in his room against the unappreciative Otises. They have not yet seen his most famous performances. When they do, they will beg for death! Only little Virginia, who is pretty and gentle and has never insulted him, will be spared. Death and madness to the rest!

Scene 9
Midnight in the corridor as before. Strangled gurgles. Enter the ghost with a rolling gibbet from which he contrives to hang. The twins jump out behind him wearing sheets, and yell “boo!” He screams and flees, dragging the gibbet, and once more topples down the stairs.

Scene 10
Next night. Enter the ghost in rags with a bell. He slouches toward the twins’ room shouting, “Unclean, unclean!” and ringing a bell. One twin jumps out and hits him in the face with a huge cream pie. He falls back over the other, who is on all fours behind him. He shambles away howling, and again tumbles down the stairs, as they break up and hug each other.

Scene 11
Next night. Enter the ghost, this time as a hooded headsman with a huge axe. The twins’ bedroom door is slightly open. He bursts through with axe uplifted, is drenched by a bucket of water falling from above, and flees again, once more tumbling down the stairs, as the twins screech with laughter.

Scene 12
The ghost sits morosely in his room. He is wrapped in a blanket, with a hot water bottle on his head, his arm in a sling, and his feet in a basin of steaming water. Disgrace! He has been hooted and hectored off the stage! Let the Otises do without him! Let them sleep like lumps! Let them hang! He quits!

Scene 13
The Otises are at breakfast. There has been no sign of the ghost for a week. The twins miss him. Virginia commiserates. Their parents discuss the clambake planned for the next day.

Scene 14
The Otises and their guests, including Canterville and Cheshire, now 18, are seen at the clambake. Projections show badminton, archery, croquet, and riding. Cheshire has asked for Virginia’s hand. Otis has declined; they are both too young. That aside, if both become what he believes they will, in a few years, he could imagine no finer match. Mrs. Otis agrees. Meanwhile Virginia has torn her riding habit at one of the jumps, and has gone back to the house to have it mended.

Scene 15
Viriginia has lost her way in the house, and has entered the ghost’s room by accident. He is looking out the window. For eight days now, he says, he has kept his silence and his distance. He almost misses the twins, but they have abused him terribly. “They have, Sir Simon,” she agrees, “but you should not pretend innocence. Lord Canterville told us that you murdered your brother-in-law.” The ghost, now looking at her, admits that “I am guilty as sentenced. He had tried to steal the jewels I had given his sister at our tenth anniversary, and taunted me when I caught him. But I should never have done it. She was the one pure soul in a wicked family, and my deed made me as wicked.” Now he can sleep only in the Garden of Death, but death is forbidden for him. If a pure soul intercedes for him, perhaps the Angel of Death will have mercy on him, and he can sleep at last. Could she help? Virginia promises. An opening appears in a tapestry at the back of the room. Voices from the tapestry warn her as she and the ghost walk through.

Scene 16
Late afternoon at the clambake site. All guests are gone except Canterville and Cheshire. Virginia is missing. Perhaps she had been taken by gypsies whom Otis had let camp in the park, and who had now gone to Bexley. Otis will ride to see. Canterville and Cheshire volunteer to join.

Scene 17
The three are at Bexley that night. She isn’t there. They will return to Canterville Chase and hope for the best.

Scene 18
Otis, Mrs. Otis, the twins, Canterville and Cheshire are finishing a late supper in the dining room in silence. Otis says that they must try to sleep. “We trust in a kind Providence, and whatever we can do to help it in the morning.” The clock strikes one. Virginia appears with a box of jewels. She tells them that the ghost has died, after giving her the jewels, and that they must come to see him. She leads them to the ghost’s room. His skeleton lies on the floor. The twins say, “We love you, Sir Simon.” Mrs. Otis, looking through the windows in the moonlight, remarks that an almond tree which had withered on the day Sir Simon murdered his brother-in-law, three centuries before, is in full blossom. Virginia says, “God has forgiven him.”

Scene 19
Morning, a few days later, in the library. Otis presses Canterville to take back the jewels Sir Simon had given Virginia. “We yankees have no need of them, and in this case no right to them. They would have passed in law to his heirs three centuries ago, and eventually to you.” Canterville will hear none of it. “My dear sir, your charming daughter rendered Sir Simon a very important service through her marvelous courage and pluck. The jewels are clearly hers, and Egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading me the devil of a life. Trust your daughter, and Sir Simon’s judgment, to put his gift to best use.” He claps Otis on the arm good-naturedly as they exit.

Scene 20
Sir Simon’s gravesite, autumn afternoon, five years later. Cheshire and Virginia, now married and expecting, are present with Mr. and Mrs. Otis and the twins and Canterville. The twins, now inches taller, are played by other performers. Virginia puts an almond bough on the grave. All leave but Virginia and Cheshire. They sing the love duet “Stay with me, beautiful, in my calling.” Cheshire asks what had she seen on her journey with the ghost. She has promised to keep that secret, even from him. “But you will tell our children one day, won’t you? Won’t you?”

Wilde’s finest poetry is in his prose, and his finest prose is in his children’s stories. Most are dark. Sacrifice and heartbreak are the themes. Frank homage is paid to Hans Christian Andersen, whose little match girl and little mermaid repeat their roles in Wilde’s The Happy Prince and The Fisherman and His Soul.

The Canterville Ghost looks at the sunnier side. Virginia’s sacrifice, and the ghost’s remorse, reach the endings we hoped for. All of Wilde’s ideas but one are inspired. He was never in better form. Not many writers could have sent up the stolid Otises or the indignant Sir Simon so richly while leaving us on their side throughout.

While Usher House turns Poe upside down, the libretto for The Canterville Ghost follows Wilde’s short story pretty closely. His one misjudgment was Sir Simon’s murder of his wife, three centuries before, and his breezy justification of it to Virginia. That might have fit in many of Wilde’s works. Here it grates against the wholesome and family-friendly theme. The libretto, like the 1944 movie with Charles Laughton, changes this detail. The bloodstain is also relocated from the floor to the armor, so that the audience can see it. Also, Canterville and Cheshire are given more continuous roles, Washington Otis is left out, and Mrs. Umney is seen but not heard. These changes reflect no critique of Wilde. Stage and page have different needs.

The fidelity of the libretto to the original, these aside, led to twenty scenes averaging three minutes. These quick changes call for high-tech staging, with a minimum of bulk to haul on and off. A two-level set to distinguish bedrooms from the dining room and library should be considered, but not necessarily preferred. Any such structure would have to be able to retract quickly and silently for the outdoor scenes.

When Usher House and Canterville are staged as a double bill, or even separately, it is probably more effective to show the ancestors in the first, and most or all nonspeaking clambake guests in the second, as projections. This is all the more advantageous in that the ancestors must dance and the guests play sports. The time is past when actual performers, however adept, are likely to work well at this within limits of time and space and budget. The staff in Canterville should be real actors, even so, as we want no suggestion that they are supernatural. They can double as family members in Scene 1, with a quick change to get them to the start of Scene 2.

Wilde’s story has Sir Simon fall down the stairs once to escape the twins. Now I have him falling down the stairs at the end of every scene with them. Think of him as Wile E. Coyote, the twins as two Road Runners, and the stairs as the rim of the Grand Canyon. The key is to make it funny every time by incorporating new twists that somehow capitalize on the fact that the audience sees it coming, and by remembering that nothing is funny if it actually seems to harm. Remember also that the Road Runner never intends Wile E. Coyote to fall off the rim. Laughter could be uncomfortable if he did. An impression of innocent fun is vital.

The opera, like the story, is romantic comedy. It doesn’t play if it doesn’t make us laugh and cry in the right places in the right way, and to sympathize with all the characters throughout.

Based on Oscar Wilde’s comic short story of the same name, The Canterville Ghost is a faithful adaptation of the original tale, in which a well-to-do American family buys an English manor house that harbors a centuries-old ghost. The new owners are unimpressed by the ghost’s numerous efforts to frighten them, and the family’s twin boys take great delight in tormenting the spirit; only the young daughter shows any sympathy for the ghost’s plight.

The Leipzig Opera presented the world premiere of The Canterville Ghost in 2015. The U.S. premiere of the opera took place in 2017 at the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York as part of Scare Pair.