It was a finish line that I wasn’t sure librettist Matt Boresi and I would ever reach …. but on Friday, January 22nd, we did! We finished our opera Black September ….. at least for now.
That is to say, we finished writing it. The small matter of mounting it and performing it still confronts us – but at least the thing is finished, at least for the time being, and we are excited to share it with the world. In fact, one of the strangest things to contemplate is the fact that nobody outside of the 13 of us – the 11 singers, Matt, and I – have heard any of this score at all, except for a stray note or two that a passerby might accidentally hear as they stroll down the hall outside of the choir room. Even my own wife has not heard any of this music at all, because the vast majority of it was composed late at night, after she had gone to bed. So these performances coming up on February 5 and 6 will amount to an unveiling.
(If you want or need any background information on the opera I’m talking about, look up my earlier blog posts “September Song” and “Christmas in January.”)
True confessions time: Matt and I did not sit down and extensively or intently map out the full arc of the opera before we began, beyond a very few simple basics. We almost did through the wonders of Skype, but my own technical ineptitude ended up ruining those plans, and we ended up settling for a single sit-down meeting right before Christmas and a few emails. Otherwise, this was a tremendous leap of faith for both of us; we simply had to trust that our own respective visions of this work would align enough for our partnership to be harmonious and fruitful ….. while differing enough to generate the right kind of creative friction necessary for any such collaboration to be truly rich. We simply began building it, scene by scene – hoping that whatever the finished work turned out to be would make sense- be emotionally moving, dramatically effective and musically satisfying. I feel like inserting the words <Don’t Try This At Home, Folks!> because it doesn’t strike me as the wisest, most prudent way to do this. On the other hand, it was sort of the way it had to be in this case. And wonder of wonders, it seems to have worked out well.
If there was ever a moment of doubt in my mind, it came when Matt delivered words for a scene later in the opera that depicted the German police’s foolish and ultimately fruitless plan to storm the hostage site with officers “disguised” in track suits. (The “raid” was covered by the media and could be followed on television- not only by the viewing public but by the terrorists themselves!) When Matt delivered this particular scene to me, he said he was more excited about this than anything else he had given me thus far. But weirdly, it proved to be by far the most difficult scene for me to compose- in part because the words came in such short, percussive bursts in order to convey a great deal of information. It was indeed a dramatic scene- but it confounded me, musically, and this ended up being the one scene where I actually had to go back to the drawing board and try again. (I had written the music to be extremely repetitive in order to ratchet up the sense of tension- but I went a little too far. It’s funny how a musical device can create tremendous tension in the right dosage- but tremendous boredom in the wrong dosage.) The second try proved to be more successful- but it’s the audience who comes to see the opera who have the final say on whether or not the scene works.
Because this particular scene proved to be so tricky for me to set to music, I was very nervous about the opera’s finale, which I knew Matt envisioned as a somewhat intricate scene of overlapping voiceovers and retrospectives from all of the characters that he hoped would be a fitting representation of the chaos and carnage at the air field where this incident ended so tragically. I figured it would pose similar sorts of challenges- plus there was the added issue of the work’s finale being so crucial to its ultimate impact. How might be draw all of this together- and with what sort of feeling did we want to leave the audience? In the depths of sorrow and despair? Or uplifted with a sense of hope? A bit of both? Neither? Before I even had Matt’s actual words, I found myself wrapped up in worry about how all of this would (or would not) come together.
And then the words arrived in my email inbox, and my feeling was almost exactly like it had been with the very first words he sent me: the words sang to me. It was almost like the music was already there, and all I had to do was excavate it. In fact, “excavate” isn’t the right word. It’s almost like I just had to open the door or brush aside the curtain and say “here’s the music. I know you think I composed it, but it was there all along.” And in one evening (this past Thursday) I composed almost five pages of music …. the most music written in one sitting during this entire project.
Unfortunately, I underestimated how long it would take me the next morning to re-copy my completely illegible rough draft into something that the guys could read and make sense of – and I found myself spending every possible second that morning and early afternoon frantically rewriting …. some time at the radio station, some time while in Milwaukee playing for the Tremper choir at a state convention for school boards ….. and even in the brief breaks during “Suor Angelica” rehearsal. And when that rehearsal finished about ten minutes early (they are SO well prepared, to the point of being a bit ahead of schedule) it gave me ample time to zip down to the office and run off copies of the first four pages of new music while feverishly (yet carefully) recopying the fifth. It was a wild sprint that was both exhausting and invigorating (more the latter than the former.) And again I say: don’t try this at home, folks! (pictured below- to the left, one page from the finale rough draft, and a page from the more carefully transcribed final copy.)
It may seem like Matt and I have done something utterly unprecedented here – but that’s not quite right. In days of yore, operas were created very quickly (and that was centuries before there were computer programs like Finale or Sibelius) although I don’t think it was common for both the libretto and the musical score to both appear so quickly. But then again, those would be longer works than our little one act show …. and typically accompanied by full orchestra, whose music would have to be composed and copied on top of the singers’ music. Nearer to our own day, there are cases of operas being written in a matter of weeks- and Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” is one such work: with Menotti not even getting the basic story idea for his opera until the middle of November. (The opera’s world premiere was on Christmas Eve, so that gives you an idea of how quickly this opera took shape- orchestral accompaniment and all.) And I have also heard of impromptu/extemporaneous operatic projects being crafted and performed in the course of a single weekend! So maybe what Matt and I have done isn’t all that big a deal. 🙂
At any rate, it is done – at least in the sense that our singers have been given all of the music that they are going to be given. Now it’s time to put this show on it feet, as they say- which means that the next four days of rehearsals will be crucial in transforming this work from dots and words on the page to a living, breathing theatrical experience on the stage. Just how that will go – just how that will feel – is anyone’s guess. And how it will be received by our audiences is really anyone’s guess. I think Matt and I are guardedly optimistic that we have created something special, and that the gifted young men for whom we’ve written it will continue to devote themselves to it with all their hearts. I’m fairly certain that they themselves have found it to be moving (we have had more than a few profound, lump-in-our-throats silences.)
It’s interesting- I think both Matt and I are grateful that we have created this work for such a small stage (in the grand scheme of things.) This is not a high-profile premiere …. and we almost certainly will be performing it for an audience comprised almost entirely of friendly fans. But in some ways I think we wish that there was going to be a critic from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (or better yet, Opera News!) present to offer up their frank and unvarnished assessment of the piece. Because I think Matt and I – at least to an extent – are viewing these two performances in early February as “our Boston” – in the same way that many Broadway musicals are tried out in Boston or Philadelphia, and then fine-tuned before being unveiled on the Great White Way. Of course, Matt and I are smart enough to know how unlikely it is that this opera will ever be done beyond the friendly confines of the Carthage campus ….. especially because the world of small-scale chamber opera is not exactly clamoring for a new opera written for an all-male cast. Who knows? It may never ever be performed again. Nevertheless, we are approaching these impending performances not as the unveiling of a polished masterpiece – but as the first stage in a process of refinement and polishing that may lead to ….. who knows? This was a leap of faith from the start, and it still is. I think we’re just incredibly happy and relieved that we have managed to create for our guys an actual opera where once upon a time there was nothing but a blank sheet of paper. Now there are 23 pages of handwritten words and music, lovingly crafted with these particular young men and their voices in mind…. to tell a powerful story of courage and hope in the face of terror and hatred.
By the way, it feels great to be “finished” – if for no other reason than because Matt and I no longer are finding ourselves spending night after night after night locked in the relentless pressure of cranking out more of this opera. Friday night, Kathy and I actually went out to the Yard Arm for a leisurely dinner …. just the two of us …. to celebrate the end of this tough gauntlet. (I suspect Matt did the same with his wife and precious daughter.) But there is this small part of me that is sad that this part of this amazing journey has come to an end. There is something exhilarating about crossing the finish line- but the real joy is in the race itself.
“Black September” – along with Puccini’s “Suor Angelica” – will be performed at Carthage on February 5th and 6th, 7:30 p.m., in Siebert Chapel. Admission is free. All are welcome.