opera

It's been WAY too long since I actually wrote any music so I'm happy to say that I'm back at it. For the first time in almost 6 years I have a break in which there are no commissions scheduled and no deadlines to be met. Since last year was the busiest (and most stressful) season I've ever experienced I thought it might be nice to get to work on something that I've always wanted to do but never had the time to start work on: an opera.

So...that's what I've started actually doing. I've got 6-8 months to work on it before next season's choral commissions begin to intrude. The libretto is an original work by young playwright (and Joshua Shank fan) Kelly Lusk.

Kelly and I "worked" together last March (in the blog's second entry!) when I directed the Brownsburg High School Madrigal Singers through Autumn. Kelly had won a young playwright's competition for the second year in a row sponsored by the Indiana Repertory Theater and I had the chance to see the world premiere of his play We, The Boys. It was an amazing experience and the play is perfect for a first opera. He is unfailingly brilliant in his writing and it will be a challenge to treat it correctly.

It takes place in a park and deals with the breakdown of 2 relationships, the death of an old man and the disembodied voice of Leonardo da Vinci. Of course, the moment I distill it down like that to make it suitable for blog consumption it completely misses the point but...

Anyhow, I've read and reread the script dozens of times by now and it's completely marked up with notes about characterization, musical cues, etc. My most recent project was to post a copy of the entire thing on my wall and throw color at it.













I heard that John Corigliano uses this technique (or something like it) sometimes and, if it's good enough for a Pulitzer/Grammy/Oscar-winner, then it's good enough for me. I was actually surprised by how much it helped me focus my intent on a few of the pieces (14 "movements" in all). And, on top of that, I got to play with Crayolas for an hour.














Once I was done it ended up being a fairly interesting visual collage of colors. My next step is going to be making a "mix" CD with pieces by other composers that I think characterize what I want to say for each movement. I also ordered a bunch of recordings of modern operas to listen to and absorb. For the nerdy out there, that list consists of:

Strawberry Fields (Michael Torke)
Nixon in China (John Adams)
The Death of Klinghoffer (John Adams)
Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten)
Vanessa (Samuel Barber)
Akhnaten (Philip Glass)
A Water Bird Talk (Dominick Argento)
Dead Man Walking (Jake Heggie)

I can think of at least a dozen others that I would like to own but I'll have to wait until after Christmas to get them. I hear Wozzeck is amazing.