One of the more unusual Christmas decorations that has become more prominent in the UK in recent decades is the Christmas spider.
Many people are terrified of spiders, but in a lot of cultures spiders are considered lucky. Here in the UK, for instance, we have what are called “money spiders”. These are tiny spiders that you’d hardly notice, but folk tradition says that if one drops onto your skin, hair or clothes it is a sign that you will be receiving some money soon. Its also bad luck to kill one.
In parts of Eastern Europe and Germany another folk tradition says that you are considered lucky if a spider has spun a web in your Christmas tree. This tradition is the origin of the legend of the Christmas spider.
In the latter part of the 20th century, this legend has spread around the world thanks largely to the internet. The Christmas spider has become so popular that two gay men have written an opera about it. These men are composer Clint Borzoni and librettist John de los Santos.
But before we look at their opera it might be a good idea to recount the most frequently told version of the legend of the Christmas spider for those of you who are not familiar with it.
There was a poor widow who lived with her children near a forest in a small hut. One day a pine cone fell off a tree into the family’s small patch of land outside their front door. Seeing that it had taken root, the widow decided to nurture the sapling, hoping it would grow into a healthy tree by Christmas in a future year. The children were excited and helped their mother to look after the tree as it grew, and after a couple of years it had grown into a beautiful little tree.
However, as Christmas Day approached, the widow had to admit to her children that they would not be able to afford decorations for their tree, not even candles. So, on Christmas Eve the children went to bed somewhat saddened that their Christmas Day will not be as splendid as they had hoped.
Christmas Day dawned, and when the family awoke and went to look outside they saw that frost had developed overnight and that their little Christmas tree was festooned with glittering frost-covered cobwebs.
And here the legends vary. Some say that the light of the dawn had turned the cobweb into strands of gold and silver. Another version says that the Christkind or the local Christmas gift-bringer had made the transformation. Whoever made the change, the result was the same. The poor family had a great Christmas, and afterwards they gathered up the gold and silver strands so that they could buy food to get them through the winter. In yet another version of the legend, the spider filled the tree with her webs in gratitude to the widow for not brushing her out of the tree or killing her.
This legend was probably a 17th century creation to give an origin story to tinsel and lametta, decorations that were first being made at that time in the silver-mining areas of Germany.
Clint Borzoni and John de los Santos brought another interpretation to the legend. Instead of a poor widow, they based their opera on a poor woodcutter and his family. As well as enduring the hardships of a harsh winter, the family were being threatened with eviction from their home by their unscrupulous landlady.
In their opera, called simply “The Christmas Spider”, the basic legend remains the same. The inclusion of the landlady who is not present in the original legend, provides an essential detail that brings a satisfactory resolution to the plight of the poor family. The YouTube video below gives extracts from the opera itself.
This is not the first opera that the two have produced together. In 2015 they wrote “When Adonis Calls”, based on the works of a gay poet Gavin Dillard (b.1954). The basic premise is unoriginal: an author with writer’s block meets a budding young writer who is a great fan. I saw a comedy thriller with the same premise earlier this year. What makes “When Adonis Calls” different is that the relationship between the two characters develops into erotic fantasy rather than murder.
Borzoni and de los Santos wrote their second opera in 2021. Called “The Copper Queen”, it is based on the real-life story of the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona, and its resident ghost Julia Lowell, a prostitute, who committed suicide in the hotel in the 1930s.
Next Sunday we move away from Christmas trees and decorations to look how an Italian Renaissance satirist may have influenced the creation of an Italian gift-bringer.
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