inspirations

Okay, so I haven't been blogging about the opera because I got carried away with the Midwest Composers Symposium, but now that the event is over, I can tell you I started my opera! And I know what my characters's voice types are and the instruments I'm using.

I was so excited! The beginning starts with the resident doctor opera chorus singing about their mentor.

And, I was totally hearing the beginning in G minor.

Do you know what else is in G minor?

• Philip Glass's Music in Similar Motion (We played this at Music10 in Switzerland.)
• David Lang's How to Pray (on my iPod)

Oh, and the kicker:

• Dido's Lament.

I suppose if my opera starts sounding like David Bowie's "Heroes" album, you'll know why.

fear no danger to ensue

BELINDA AND SECOND WOMAN

repeated by Chorus

Fear no danger to ensue,

The Hero loves as well as you,

Ever gentle, ever smiling,

And the cares of life beguiling,

Cupid strew your path with flowers

Gather'd from Elysian bowers.

***

I have decided not to sing through the recitatives. I wasn't sure if my blundering through them would help me musically or amuse the listener. Speaking of amusing the listener, here's this week's recording.

I don't have much to say about this week's contribution, so enjoy.

On the inadequacies of an umbilical cord

She is beyond peer, for her kind,

the last great naveled mind

perhaps.

Yet we wonder, what if this great lady

had been reborn with a more perfect body,

one without umbilical flaws,

one without Eve's curse,

tainting and twisting its course?

I've been trying to figure out why writing for this blog has been so difficult for me. After all, I started blogging about politics, baseball and other things a long time ago, so all of this should pretty much be old hat.

However, I was realizing that one of the reasons is that my blogging style is a lot sloppier than my professional writing style, and while I can be at peace with that while writing about hobbies, this particular blog is cutting dangerously close to the arena in which I'm trying (somewhat unsuccessfully thus far) to make a living. My mind takes this information, blows it up, and the next thing I know, my entire future is riding on my next post for a blog that only a few friends are going to be reading at this point in time.

Crazy, right?

ah belinda

DIDO

Ah! Belinda, I am press'd

With torment not to be confess'd,

Peace and I are strangers grown.

I languish till my grief is known,

Yet would not have it guess'd.

***

A theory professor of mine and his wife named one of their cats "Dido" because the cat would not stop lamenting. It's true; Dido is most famous for her lamenting over a ground bass. In fact, when I have to teach the chapter on continuous variations, both laments are covered. (Once one of my theory students and I performed an impromptu performance of this tune. He sang countertenor; I accompanied him. It's a shame no one recorded him, for I would have used that recording! I should have him sing in my opera...)

Here I noticed Purcell combines the second half of the first line ("I am press'd") with the second line after having Dido drastically sigh. The other lines have their own phrases; some languish more than others.

I had a hard time singing this one. Some of the rhythmic melismas, like the ones found on "prest with torment," were awkward to sing. I also had issues with aligning the syllabic and melodic stresses in the music. For example, the word "torment" has its stress on the first syllable, which Purcell places on the downbeat. He also places the second weaker syllable on the second half of the second beat, and this can be stressed accidentally as well.

shake the cloud from off your brow

BELINDA

Shake the cloud from off your brow,

Fate your wishes does allow;

Empire growing, pleasures flowing,

Fortune smiles and so should you.

CHORUS

Banish sorrow, banish care,

Grief should ne'er approach the fair.

***

The piano-vocal score I borrowed from the library conveniently has notes to the singer that have been erased, but I can still see them. For example, there are notes on when to breathe. I should have taken them. Of course, when do you have time to breathe if this song is going at a brisk tempo? (I may have been rushing...)

Also, the score points out (obviously) that Purcell uses text painting on the word "shake" and mirrors it again on the word "flowing." My question is, why does Purcell reverse the dotted-eighth sixteenth rhythm for the very first "shake?" Does this perk the listener's ears? Or, does this even matter because the singer should be embellishing the melody anyway?

I particularly like the choral writing. The chorus's line is homophonic at first, but when they repeat their line, the alto and bass lines are delayed a bit, thus causing the fricatives to pop.

purcell sing-along

As I'm waiting for Kendall to finish a working draft of the opera, I thought I should do some research and brush up on my English text setting.

This may seem easy, but it isn't for me; I know I have had some problems with scansion in the past. My solution for this is to study Henry Purcell's vocal works, which, according to my former professor, is best the way to learn how to set English.

I also figure the most ideal way to study these works is to - get this - SING through them. Of course, this little experiment of mine might have some consequences; mainly, that you the listener might turn red and laugh hysterically if you were to hear my singing. (Has this happened to me before? Ask Andrew Norman, who kindly accompanied me during a semester of voice lessons. My voice teacher made me speak like Mickey Mouse; he turned red, said he had to instantly excuse himself, then ran out and told all my friends how silly I sounded. Thanks, Andrew, you have scarred me for life.)

My next few blog posts will be spent discussing my attempts to sing through these vocal works. In the meantime, you can listen to Ligeti singing Purcell.

In the beginning..,

...there was an allegory.

Battle of Joshua with Amalekites - Nicolas Poussin

My original short story, "Building a Better Joshua," was written at a time when mega-churches were beginning to propagate, and was intended as an allegory about religions being ever more vain clones of the last model. The title character is named after the Hebrew character Joshua, which translates as "God is salvation," and not after anything you'll find in Greek or Roman mythology. That said, the story itself is based somewhat (okay, loosely, very loosely) on Ovid's version of the Narcissus myth, with other characters representing Juno (Dr. June Liri), Echo (Chloe) and Nemesis (Dr. X (Name Redacted)). Obviously you can see that their names fall more in line with their Roman counterparts.

The main plot of the story revolves around romance writer Chloe's attempt to use what's in the future referred to as a cosmetic cloning procedure to make a better husband for herself, as old Joshua's just not cutting it for a woman of her stature anymore. The conflict arises when after meeting his clone, old Joshua doesn't slink off as most inferior originals do, but instead seems to become infatuated with the new, better version of himself. What's worse, for Chloe at least, the clone doesn't seem entirely put off by this attraction.

I'm not going to give a whole lot of the plot away from there yet, but you can rightfully guess that hijinks will ensue.

Narcissus and Echo aren't the only myths influencing the story, and while they haven't been used as often in contemporary culture as they should be, the other myth I heavily borrowed from, that of Pygmalion and the statue, represented in Dr. Liri's interaction with her clone creation, has crossed well into the land of Trite. If I didn't feel that I was keeping that aspect of the story original and putting a different spin on it than say Mary Shelley (or her many many derivatives,) George Bernard Shaw or Richard Powers to name a few, then I might have thought twice about including it. However, I'm vain. I do think I have something new here.

Next week, I'll write about some of the challenges translating this story into a more poetic form, and one case where it's actually been made easier than when writing the original.