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Two operas I never wrote
Prelude
How can a composer describe a piece of music without playing it? He can't, of course.
Most of the great composers were hyper-prolific, many within short life spans. Schubert, for example, wrote 600 songs as well as a myriad of other larger works (including several operas) - and he died at 31.
By contrast, as a composer I was hypo-prolific. From a fairly early age I was weaving grandiose plans for works I would not come close to realizing.
I wrote my first piece at age ten, a piano work called Meditation. I recall the exhilaration of composing, and the certainty that I would strive to match that feeling as often as possible. That first effort, however, was a harbinger of things to come, for it remained unfinished (it broke off in the middle of an arpeggio, like a bridge leading to nowhere.)
When I was a freshman in high school, I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah. It was the first great musical revelation of my life. During the following year, I wrote my own oratorio - a poor, brief 8-page attempt to imitate The Master. (As I recall, the Aria [accompanied of course by harpsichord] wasn't bad. But the Chorus - with its telltale trumpet - could only dumbly repeat its one pathetic motive [on the words 'Cry Out and Shout!'] I was not privy to the art of development which Handel seemed to effect so effortlessly.)
After hearing Bach's B-Minor Mass, I planned my own oratorio which would open with the slow unwinding of a majestic fugue. But my fugue had scarcely started to unwind when it got wound up in knots. It took me many more years to realize that the Ponderous wasn't my forte.
In my early adult years I was exposed to German Lieder and subsequently wrote some Schumannesque ones of my own. Thus did I chronologically advance from the mid-eighteenth century of the oratorio to the mid-nineteenth century.
I went to The University of Illinois to study music because (as I rationalized it) I was 'tired of being a dilettante.' I did not yet realize that I was a dilettante at heart.
When I brought the start of a piece (it was the beginning of a feeble attempt to enter the early twentieth century by means of a Bartokian string quartet) to Herbert Brun at our first meeting, he took one look, shook his head, and said bluntly, 'One doesn't write like this anymore.' But, except for one brief twelve-tone piano piece (which I had no affection for and thus never played after my time with him) and a wacko woodwind quintet (in which, by my own description, the bass clarinet 'has a nervous breakdown'), I could never fathom how that 'one' related to me. I had been rudely brought up to date kicking and screaming.
After the time I studied composition with Herbert, I began to design pieces as one would design a building. Apparently I had not yet heard Goethe's cliché 'Architecture is frozen music'; at any rate, my 'music', in a phantasm of lovely colors and shapes, remained there 'frozen' on the drafting table.
(The one exception was para-DIDDLE, my percussion piece for nine snare drums. That piece I designed first, going so far as to lay out the various sections using the Fibonacci Sequence [1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...] to determine the length of each in seconds. I also imposed a programme on those various sections (one was called 'dialogue' and so on), and then 'funneled' the notes into this 'mold.' Thanks to my dear friend Allen Otte, this piece has been played throughout the world and may have even achieved a certain vogue amongst percussion enthusiasts. But I have yet to have a listener exclaim, 'Wow! Great use of Fibonacci!' And of course this piece did not contain pitched music.)
A few short years later I decided to write a series of pieces for my wife and me called 'duodramas.' These would be quasi-performance pieces, wherein we would both speak and move as well as sing and play. But I set such strict conditions for myself (each piece had to have 'an overriding idea' [the second one became self-referential]) that I was only able to complete two pieces in this genre.
Eventually, the miracle happened: it was vouchsafed that I would write an opera called Harry & Helene. (Allen called it, half derisively, a 'musical'. Well - why not? Musicals are part of the great tradition of American theater!) This only happened because I was able to suspend all my pre-conceived notions about musical language and political ideas. I decided that the only thing I would stipulate beforehand would be the general plot; otherwise, the libretto and music would flow forth in whichever directions my fancy took me. As a result, the piece grew organically (over four long years), and so I was able to complete my first large-scale work. And I found that I had written a piece with at least three virtues: it always moves forward dramatically; it seems effortless in its humor and wit; and it doesn't have a pretentious bone in its body.
At least four other opera ideas were waiting in the wings. Alas, the summer of 1994, when in a mad dash I completed my opera score, was my last summer of health. After that my stamina and my ability to play became compromised; there would be no more music. (Ironic, that it would all cease at the very moment when, at long last, T had finally discovered how I myself should compose!)
Below are presented my ideas (as far as they go) for the two most developed operas. The reader is welcome to feel either regret or relief that these works were never written.
1. Cory
There are times when events seem to tumble into a writer's lap unbidden and all he has to do is move his pen and presto, he has the perfect plot line. I'm sure that Tolstoy must have felt that way about Napoleon's invasion of and then retreat from Moscow.
And I surely felt that way about the 1986 Filipino 'revolution'. For here was a compelling tale with a villain and a martyred hero and his wife the heroine. Add the villain's wife, a comedic shopaholic, and there is the cast of four soloists for an opera.
I recall the events clearly twenty years later; for I, like most people, was on the edge of my seat, mainly because I feared the worst outcome. (And what would be better to form an opera plot?) There was the dictator named Ferdinand Marcos (and his wife Imelda.) When the popular senator Benigno ('Ninoy') Aquino returned from exile to challenge him in an open election, he was gunned down at the airport. His wife Corazon ('Cory') stepped into the breach and ran against the dictator. There was wide-spread corruption in that election. At one crucial point, Marcos and Cory each took the oath of office from different locations (hers was a secret convent.) (While he was taking his, rebels seized the radio station and shut it down.) Finally Marcos was persuaded to renounce his office and go into exile. Cory became the new president.
The music of the opera would reflect the East/West duality: the accompanying music would be a brass quintet (West), and gamelan instruments (East.)
There would be a musical language for each main character. The main contrast would be between Cory and Marcos: while hers is a primitive-if-stolid tonality, his would be essentially atonal (since he has lost his 'center.')
I was wont to call this work 'a dramatic secular cantata' as much as an opera. For all its action (it would really be a series of tableaux) would take place on a multi-level platform. The bottom (floor) level would consist of a number of chairs: these would represent the interior of an airplane. When Ninoy flies to the Philippines, the chairs are facing right (i.e. East.)
True to my socialist background (and as Moussorsky did in Boris Gudinov), I would have this opera begin and end with choruses of the Filipino people. In the opening, they would debate whether their country is an Eastern or a Western nation.
While Cory is hiding in the monastery, the nuns sing a 'Hymn to Our Lady' - a double meaning in this context.
The two candidates take the oath of office in tandem on opposite sides of the stage:
Cory: I, Corazon Acquino,...
Marcos: I, Ferdinand Marcos,...
Cory: Do solemnly swear:
Marcos: Do solemnly swear:
Cory: (It is a good thing to swear solemnly...)
Marcos: (It is a farce to swear solemnly...)
They both swear the same words of the oath itself; it is in their respective asides that they betray their true natures. As Marcos mutters his, his image begins to flicker until he is plunged into the silence of darkness. Cory sings a magnificent aria about helping the Filipino people.
The penultimate scene is the Marcoses beginning their flight into exile in Hawaii. The chairs on the 'plane' have been turned 'West' (that is, to the left.) Marcos, who is also terminally ill, sings a poignant lament:
'I thought I would be the Kennedy of Southeast Asia,
But all I became was a third-rate martinet!'
Interspersed with this is his wife Imelda's somewhat different take on this enforced exile: she sings the equivalent of 'I'll shop 'til I drop!'
In the chorus at the end, the People debate whether their country will be any better off with the change in presidents.
Cory presents a wonderful built-in plot for a dramatic secular cantata. Unfortunately I generated very little music a priori from these ideas, the reason for which should be clear: it is a serious (rather than comic) subject.
2. Dorian
There have been at least four operas written using Oscar Wilde's drear (but brilliant) novella 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' as a subject. But none of these, as far as I can determine, is a comedy. Indeed, the novel is so stultifying that I felt engulfed by claustrophobia whenever I read it. It is like spending several weeks in a conservatory with a myriad of hothouse plants emitting intoxicating fragrances. It is singularly depressing.
Here is a brief summary (mostly from Wikipedia) of the novella:
"The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Dorian is selected for his remarkable physical beauty, and Basil becomes strongly infatuated with Dorian, believing that his beauty is responsible for a new mode of art. Talking in Basil's garden, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that the only thing worth pursuing in life is beauty, and the fulfillment of the senses. Realising that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian cries out, wishing that the portrait Basil has painted of him would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a sequence of debauched acts: these include the responsibility for the suicide of the actress Sibyl Vane. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, each sin being displayed as a new sign of aging and depravity on the portrait. These viewings finally overwealm Dorian: he first kills Basil to prevent him from learning the truth. And finally, as the result of an attempt to destroy the painting with a knife, he is found stabbed to death - and with the loathesome visage of the painting as his own features. While the painting has returned to the pristine state of the beginning."
See what I mean by 'depressing'? Nevertheless, I decided to make an opera treatment of this novel. However, there would be some changes: I call these 'heresies' due to the canonical nature of the book.
The First Heresy: 'Dorian' would be a comic-absurdist opera - what I would call 'a travesty.'(Definition of travesty: 'a burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment, or subject matter.' Yep, that's it in a nutshell!)
Now we had an opera company composed of four singers: a soprano, an alto, a tenor, and a bass. But the four main characters of the book (and the only ones in my opera) would be: Dorian, Basil (the painter), Sibyl (the little actress), and Lord Henry. As you can see, only one of these is female. One of our female singers - probably my wife - wouldn't have a part. Thus:
The Second Heresy: The part of Dorian would be played by a woman.
(There is precedence for this: the eminent Russian director Meyerhold used a female to play Dorian in his 1915 production. I know, the protagonist is supposed to be 'a beautiful young man.' But once we allow that the whole treatment is to be a 'travesty', this follows easily. In fact, the woman playing the part need not even be particularly young or beautiful at all [that's the beauty of a travesty!]
(Besides, there is already a character in the novel who spends a lot of time cross-dressed: that is the little actress Sibyl Vane. We are told that she is playing the part of Rosaland [who in much of the play is disguised as the male Ganymede] in Shakespeare's As You Like It.)
The Third Heresy: The (in)famous Picture of Dorian Gray is KITSCH.
Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be Noble and Pure and all those other Qualities. But do you know what we'd use for this painting? Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy.' Gaze at the face of that lad: there you will see something between a simper and a smirk. So Dorian would be prancing about the stage in blue satin knickers, with matching waistcoat and slippers.
The Fourth Heresy: In its final state of distortion before it changes back to the original, the painting has become - ART.
(I would have probably used something by Picasso here - perhaps 'Weeping Woman'; or even 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' [remember, it is a travesty!])
What about the music? A big reason why I knew this was the right opera subject for me was because music seemed to flow spontaneously from its various parts as I conceived them. In this sense it was similar to my one completed opera. Some of this music, though not yet written down, was in the developmental stage on the piano. Other music was 'merely' in the stage of vocal genesis: singing forth (most often while striding briskly about) with nonsense syllables. All of that gave me a great deal of pleasure.
The opera would begin with a musical pun: the opening chorus ('My/His Name is Dorian Gray') would be in the dorian mode (that is, a minor scale with a raised sixth note.)
Singers (pace Wagner) love to sing arias. So I would write two arias for each of the four. (There would also be larger ensemble pieces as well.) For example, Lord Henry would have one extolling 'The New Hedonism' (he concludes that it's remarkably like the old hedonism.) And, since his specialty is the epigram (Wilde has him spouting scores of these sardonic bon mots in the novel), he would have an aria in which he conveys his recipe for how to construct one of those goodies.
The actress Sibyl would sing something I would set from As You Like It. As for her second aria, it would be called 'Some Damn Man.' This would be a feminist tirade, in which she ruminates on why, in works such as Hamlet and this one, a man screws up and, as a result, a woman has to die.
One big (a lesser mortal might term it 'insurmountable') problem as far as a comic treatment of this tale is concerned is the carnage in Wilde's novella. Bluntly put, three of the four main characters are dead by the close. This does not make for a very - upbeat - ending for a comic opera! Thus:
The Final Heresy: The three dead characters would be resurrected as different people:
- The painter Basil would reappear as Oscar Wilde;
- Dorian would reappear as Queen Victoria; (Don't forget, the part of Dorian is being played by a woman to begin with.)
- The little actress Sibyl would reappear as Salome (Wilde's most - vivid - creation);
- Lord Henry (the only survivor amidst all this carnage [for which he bears the major part of the blame]) would remain himself.
These four (mostly new) characters would arrange themselves as two distinct pairs on the stage. To the left would be Queen Victoria knighting (somewhat belatedly) Oscar Wilde for his service to British literature. On the right would be Lord Henry and Salome: while he attempts to ply her with his cynical epigrams, she simply repeats over and over, 'I want your head!' (Yes, Salome is the one match for that verbal bully!)
After a suitable time has passed with such verbal sparring, the two pairs merge together at the center of the stage and, to a fugue treatment of the original opening 'Dorian' chorus, wittily muse on what has transpired and its implications, thus bringing the opera to a close.
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