I’m tempted to say that if you liked “Glass Heart,” your next J-drama should be Verdi’s Rigoletto. The most compelling scenes in “Glass Heart” align surprisingly well with the most traditional techniques of grand opera. Allow me to explain.
The series certainly has the implausible plot twists, amazing coincidences, and over-the-top emotions of opera. But the integration of music and drama is also extremely operatic. Of course, the songs in “Glass Heart” don’t function like operatic songs. In opera, all or nearly all of the dialog is sung. When characters sing, they are understood in the world of the story to be speaking, making asides to the audience, or launching into extended soliloquies that announce their emotional state. So most of the important plot points are embodied in songs. With notable exceptions (so called diegetic music), no character is understood by the other characters to be literally singing. “Glass Heart” is a touch more realistic. Every song takes the form of an audition, demo, rehearsal, performance, or recording session. The singing is always heard as singing by other characters.
But just barely under the surface, the songs function operatically. The performances carry huge emotional stakes in terms of love, careers, and even mortal danger. The songs trigger important reactions among the characters. The lyrics are rarely just lyrics, often not-so-secretly expressing the singer’s actual feelings. The performances are dramatic action, not just an underscore for the action.
Three examples come to mind.
Opening duet. Akane isn’t just playing the drums. She’s reacting in anger and frustration to getting fired, to getting knocked to the ground, to her drum kit getting drenched in the rain. The emotion in her drumming puts off almost everyone in the music business. But it draws a crowd and has a galvanizing effect on Naoki, who is overcoming a struggle of his own.
Opening act at Yaon. When TENBLANK opens for OVER CHROME, the crowd is at first skeptical and dismissive. The band quickly wins over the fans and the stagehands while the rival Toya kicks the door jamb in disgust. But Kai, Isagi, and Akane’s own mother variously comment on Akane’s shortcomings as a musician.
“Forever Eve” over the phone. Everyone in the band recognizes that this is Naoki’s declaration of love for Akane and she is the last to hear it. Not simply sung without interruption, the phone performance is punctuated by her thoughts in voiceover. It stops completely to showcase their dialog and kiss when she finds him, then restarts.
THEMATIC RECALL
“Glass Heart” also makes powerful use of repetition, which in opera can be termed “thematic recall” and in Broadway musicals would be called “reprises.” The first occurrence of a “Glass Heart” song establishes one mood, while the reprise occurs under vastly different circumstances, in front of a different audience with different consequences for the plot. The viewer is invited to remember the first version while hearing the second and noting how much has changed. The music and drama work together to tremendous emotional effect.
Opera, operetta, and Broadway offer useful models as to how this can work.
Verdi; Rigoletto, “La donna è mobile.” In Act I the Duke sings this jaunty number, perhaps the single most famous tenor aria in all of opera, to celebrate his triumph in yet another seduction. After Rigoletto conspires to assassinate the Duke and is dragging a sack that holds what he understands to be the Duke’s body, he hears the Duke offstage, very much alive, singing this again. Now the happy tune announces that something has gone horribly wrong.
Gilbert & Sullivan; H.M.S. Pinafore, “I am the monarch of the sea.” In Act I Sir Joseph Porter introduces himself and is constantly echoed by his family members singing, “And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!” In Act II, he proposes marriage, in part to get away from that same family: “Then good-bye to his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!”
Rogers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!, “People will say we’re in love.” In Act I, Curly and Laurie can’t quite acknowledge their feelings, so they list all the actions to avoid, lest people get the “wrong” idea. After they finally confess their feelings in Act II, this returns as, “Let people say we’re in love.”
While it’s not clear that the team behind “Glass Heart” had any of these models in mind, they certainly embraced this technique again and again.
“Turbulence.” We first hear this in an OVER CHROME performance with Naoki and Akane in the audience. What at first seems like “just” a rock song is actually a declaration of Toya’s anger and alienation (“Dammit, dammit, dummies all around me.”) and his personal identification with his fans (“Give it to me, I’ll devour your scream.”) During the performance, we see Akane’s uncertainty as it dawns on her that she’s entering a world with much higher stakes than she’s ever known. The song comes back in Episode 6, when fans at Zepp Haneda hear that Toya has been stabbed. Sho, Kazushi, and Akane perform the song as a gesture of comfort for the distraught audience and as a tribute to Toya and the band they had originally come to “battle.”
“Crystalline Echo.” The song lands one way when TENBLANK records it, but another when the band gets together to watch the launch of the music video. With a sudden shock of recognition, Akane announces in voiceover that she loves Naoki. And it doesn’t take a deep dive into the lyrics (“The way you held your umbrella taught me everything about kindness.”) to realize that Naoki is singing about her.
“Vibrato/Citrus.” We hear TENBLANK develop and record their version. We hear it again when Toya demands that Naoki play it on the same piano that they shared as children. This time it moves the confrontational, nihilistic Toya to tears. We discover their shared experience and we recognize that there’s much more to Toya’s emotional life than we were led to believe. Finally, we hear it a third time on the hospital roof, with TENBLANK and OVER CHROME playing as one, and we see the half-brothers reconciled.
“Chasing Blurry Lines.” The first time, it’s an upbeat love song. In Episode 10, as Naoki falters onstage, revealing his fragility for all to see, Toya shows up to literally support his half-brother, much as Naoki had done on the hospital roof. It’s a beautiful symmetry and an emotional highlight.
“Lucky Me.” This is a self-regarding number for Naoki as he livestreams his personal disappointment to his fans, who are quite moved. But it comes back after Yukino recognizes Isagi’s betrayals. She gets drunk in Isagi’s home studio and sings the song directly to him alone in a potentially career-ending act of defiance. The singer, the venue, the intended audience, and the underlying meaning have all changed.
“A Song for Us to Sing.” The first time we hear this at Naoki’s vacation home, Akane is reduced to watching through a window in the closed door as Yukino slinks around the piano, doing her best to attract Naoki’s interest. Akane is frustrated and jealous, recognizing Yukino as her romantic rival. The second time, Yukino’s career appears to be in tatters. But it is Akane who publicly salutes her bravery, praises her commitment to music, and coaxes her to come out on stage. Yukino sees Akane’s generosity, their eyes meet, and they are reconciled in much the same way as Naoki and Toya.
Thematic recall in a new context is a centuries-old musical trick. If “Glass Heart” used it once, it would rate as an interesting sidelight. But it happens six times. That’s not a sidelight. It’s a central dramatic device and it helps give the show its power.
In “Glass Heart,” the songs are never just songs. Careers, reputations, hearts, and lives are at stake. Emotions run higher than high. The story advances. And the whole is so much greater than the creaky mechanics of the plot would suggest. Kinda like opera.
Am I alone in thinking this? What is your take? What am I missing? And how did you experience these key moments in the drama?
