| Summary: | Çelebi is one of the masterpieces of Cemal Reşit Rey, one of Turkey’s greatest composers. Cemal Reşit Rey wrote the opera in its first version between 1942 and 1945. He kept working on the opera for the next thirty years and completed the final version’s orchestral score in 1973 and the vocal score in 1975. Bought by the Ankara State opera around 1980, the opera got lost during a traffic between Ankara and Istanbul when the score and parts were asked for performance of excerpts. The work was presumed lost for nearly twenty years, until it was discovered in Ankara State Opera’s archives in September 2005. The process of Çelebi’s discovery, and the methods of its restoration, are dealt in the thesis as well as the completion of the orchestral parts and the final preparation for the world premiere. Çelebi’s libretto originated from a radio play the Rey brothers have come across during their post at the Ankara Radio between the years 1938-40. Kemençe player Ruşen Ferit Kam and Mesut Cemil, a musician of many talents whose memory lives in the Istanbul Radio’s main Studio; had inserted traditional Turkish sketches into the merry play. The libretto which Ekrem Reşit Rey modeled out of this play, included major Metastasian elements; such as rivalry in love, a touching recognition scene and a tragic end. There exists in Çelebi a love triangle between Fatma, Hasan Çavuş and Çelebi. The triangle can be compared , to name an example to the Carmen-Don José-Escamillo triangle present in Bizet’s Carmen. The fact that it is an opera consisting of music interspersed with spoken dialogue çlassifies Çelebi as an opera comique. The work has also elements of the German tradition (use of leitmotive); the grand opera tradition (presence of the introductory spectacular procession) and dramma giocoso. Çelebi’s libretto is written in verse, it is a poetic work (manzum) in syllabic meter (hece vezni), one of the three types of meter found in Turkish poetry; the other two being aruz meter (aruz vezni) and free meter (serbest vezin). Ekrem Reşit uses syllables of seven at least and of fourteen at most in his libretto Çelebi’s verse is abundant in “zengin” kafiye, which is of the highest artistic type because it creates greatest resonance and sonority (Demircan, 1979). In Çelebi, forward momentum is provided by the progressive addition of characters towards the end of each scene (Bas,1964). Thus, Act I ends with the Fatma-Çelebi duet, Act II concludes with the quartet and Act III concludes with the tumultous scene of attack of the crowd. (male chorus) The musical language in Cemal Reşit’s compositions, including Çelebi will show a musical texture imbued with Turkish traditional idioms-a whole world of makams used evocatively. Every act and most of the scenes in Çelebi in one way or another include makam influence. The opera which explores the glorious Tulip Era of the Ottoman empire, is brilliantly set to words in both Turkish and French, as a product of the master francophone Rey brothers’ colourful imagination and fraternal collaboration, rare in music history (İnankur and Germaner,2002). The historical colour, the palace which provided inspiration for Mozart (Entführung, Zaide) the historic protagonist Müezzin Çelebi as well as the divan poets Nedim and Sami, match the tone of Rey’s music (Koçu, 2004). The Chorus’s male and female sections sing separately throughout the opera, observing the religious tradition. Moreover, the final chorus of Act IV is a chorus of angels. Rey’s theoretical-esthetic syntheses expound a whole world of new and sophisticated sonorities, combine makam evoking scalar structures and chords generated from such structures in asymmetrical, irregular phrasings and metric modulations. Rey’s use of extended tonality includes a wide array of chordal and voice leading procedures including the family of seventh chords,chord clusters and power chords. His chromaticism is a feature of his first creative period around the 1930’s and includes the use of word painting in instances like Fatma’s Çelebi’s arias of Act IV. The libretto has literary and artistic merit of its own, due to its prose and its bilingual essence (Miller,1997). The opera comprises several layers of thougth: the immediate, the musical but also the moral, (Çelebi’s passion) the philosophical and spiritual (angels, death and transfiguration).Keywords: Cemal Reşit Rey’s opera Çelebi, Turkish operas Opera in Turkey, Restoration of the lost opera. İlk versiyonu 1942 ile 1945 arasında, ağabeyi Ekrem Reşit’in librettosu üzerine üç yılda bestelenmiş olan Çelebi üzerinde Cemal Reşit Rey otuz yıldan fazla çalışmış ve eserin ikinci ve son versiyonunun orkestra partisyonunu 1973’te, piyano-şan partisyonunu ise 1975’te tamamlamıştır. 1978-80 arasında Ankara Devlet Operası tarafından satın alınan opera, sonraki yıllarda bazı bölümlerinin icrası için eserin İstanbul’a yollanıp iadesi sürecinde kaybolmuştur. Yaklaşık yirmi sene kayıp olarak bilinen Çelebi Eylül 2005’te Ankara Devlet Operası’nın arşivinde bulunmuştu. Rey kardeşlerin librettist ve kompozitör olarak yaratmış oldukları Çelebi’nin Türk ve evrensel opera sanatındaki yeri, eserin besteleniş süreci ile analizi bu çalışmanın konusunu oluşturmaktadır. Eserin bulunuşunun ardından on aylık bir çalışma sonucunda yaklaşık dokuzyüz sayfa orkestra partisi yazılarak eserin eksik olan materiyelinin tamamlanması ile opera dünya prömiyerine hazır hale gelmiş bulunmaktadır. Çelebi operasının Cemal Reşit Rey’in renkli ve engin iç dünyasının bir uzantısı olduğunu ifade etmek mümkündür. Eser, Osmanlı tarihinin en parlak dönemi olan Lâle Devri’nde geçmesi dolayısıyla tarihi bir önem taşır. Bestecinin uyguladığı halk müziğinin stilize bir biçimde işlenişi, 20. yüzyılın ulusalcılık akımları bünyesinde benimsenmiş olan prensipler arasında idi. Çelebi opera tarihinde birçok önemli örneği bulunan, bir sanatçının yaşamını konu alan bir operadır. Aynı zamanda Osmanlı sosyal yaşantısının bir panoramasını gözler önüne sermekte olan opera, aşk, sadakat ve aile gibi manevi değerlerin taşıdığı derin anlamlar üzerinde düşünülmesi gereken mesajları içermektedir.Anahtar Kelimeler: Cemal Reşit Rey’in Çelebi operası, Türk opera sanatı, kayıp olan operanın bulunup tamamlanarak dünya prömiyerine hazırlanması.
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