The Teacher Who Was Not To Be

The Teacher Who Was Not To Be (Norwegian: Læreren som ikke ble) is an opera monologue by Marcus Paus and with a libretto by Olav Anton Thommessen from 2013. It premiered at the concert "Paus & Paus" (with works by Marcus Paus and Ole Paus) in the Atrium of the University of Oslo as part of the Oslo Opera Festival on 12 October 2013, with opera singer Knut Stiklestad in the role of the eponymous "Teacher."[1][2]

The monologue is based on a letter written by Olav Anton Thommessen to Marcus Paus in 2006, shortly after Paus had been admitted to the Norwegian Society of Composers. Thommessen, born in 1946, is known as an atonal modernist composer and a representative of the generation of composers who became active in the 1970s, whereas Paus, born in 1979 as the son of the prominent cultural figure Ole Paus and a relative of Henrik Ibsen, is a noted representative of a reorientation toward tradition, tonality and melody, who once described himself as a "cultural conservative non-modernist."[3] In the letter/libretto, Thommessen writes:

Dear Marcus! I write to you based on your presentation in the Norwegian Composers' Association, where you tried to act as a "breath of fresh air" in an environment that you believe has been led astray. It was insulting and pubertal. And I send you some of my own works (works that you haven't bothered to familiarise yourself with!). We are probably not that different, but that you did not let me teach you at all is a personal defeat for me. The attitudes that you demonstrated in your presentation show that you do not understand what it means to be a "creative" artist. [...] I don't want any more verbal contact with you.

— Olav Anton Thommessen, The Teacher Who Was Not To Be (2006)

The monologue is emblematic of the generation gap among older Norwegian atonal modernist composers and the younger generation of composers, who are more open to other musical styles and influences, including traditional ones. Thommessen had previously been Paus' teacher at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In his letter Thommessen chastised Paus for his tonal music. A long monologue on why Paus has misunderstood everything about music ends with the words "I do not want any more verbal contact with you."[4] At the time the opera monologue premiered, the "Teacher" in the monologue remained anonymous. The monologue played an important role in an extensive debate on musical aesthetics in the music journal Ballade in 2015, during which the formerly anonymous "Teacher" was revealed by Paus to be Olav Anton Thommessen;[5] the debate was described as "the biggest public debate about art music" in Norway since the 1970s.[6]