This is the story of the hatching of a little one-act opera called Birds of a Feather: a Magic Flute Sequel …. as well as the story of a talented student who is no longer with us who nevertheless served as its central inspiration.
First, let me say that the notion of fashioning some kind of sequel to Mozart’s The Magic Flute has been bouncing around my brain for quite some time. In fact, even before I fashioned my first opera, Black September back in 2016, I was already playing around with the possibility of taking the fun-loving character of Papageno and imagining what married life would mean for him. The clearest picture in my mind was a one-act that would start with the original love duet from Mozart’s opera, with the characters of Papageno and Papagena, having just laid eyes on each other, singing “Pa …. pa …. pa …..” for an entire page, completely tongue-tied – and then dissolving to ten years later, with Papagena coming in wearing a bathrobe, with curlers in her hair, carrying an overflowing laundry basket …. singing “Pa …. pa …. pa ….” but this time out of sheer exhaustion. Whether it would have become an opera about Papageno learning to do his fair share around the house – or an opera about middle-aged parents trying to rediscover their romantic passion – or an opera about parents trying to adjust to all of their children growing up and leaving home (I would have called that sequel “The Empty Nest”) ….. who knows? I never got farther than the vaguest musing about this possibility and never wrote so much as a single note of music. But the general idea itself remained with me.
(By the way, I blithely assumed that I must be some kind of genius for being the very first person to ever think of the possibility of a sequel to The Magic Flute. But a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that I was completely wrong about that – and that the first of a number of operatic sequels to The Magic Flute appeared in 1798, less than a decade after the original work’s world premiere and Mozart’s untimely death. So much for being a genius- or for blazing a brand new trail.)
What lit the spark beneath this long-dormant idea of mine was actually the terrible news that was shared with the Carthage community on Monday, December 16th. That is the day that it was announced that a talented Carthage student named Ray Watson had been killed in a car accident two nights earlier. I am certain that nearly everybody reacted to that email the same way I did- with utter disbelief. It seemed completely inconceivable that such a thing could possibly be true. Was I reading it wrong? Was this some kind of cruel joke? Was it some kind of awful mistake? Sadly, it was completely true. And what made it even sadder than it would otherwise have been is that Ray Watson had just completed the fall semester looking happier and more secure than he had ever been since coming to Carthage. For him to be snatched away at this point in his life seemed nothing less than cruel.
Although Ray was a music theater major, Ray had also been a participant in two different opera workshop productions – back when Ray was Rachel Watson. It was my fervent wish that the opera workshop would find a way to remember Ray and honor his memory. And that is when I began to think again about the possibility of a sequel to The Magic Flute …. but with a story that would be some sort of reflection of Ray’s difficult but ultimately inspiring life’s journey – a journey of self-discovery of who Ray was born to be. It’s not that I wanted to tell Ray’s story; I couldn’t have if I wanted to because it was a story I knew very little about, and a story I would not have known how to share within the context of a light-hearted one-act opera. Ray’s experience was just the impetus- but without it, I am quite certain that Birds of Feather would never have been composed.
I went back to that original love duet from Mozart’s opera- “Pa … Pa … Pa …” – which I actually first learned and sang for music contest during my junior year in high school (43 years ago!) After the two characters sing of their ecstatic love for each other, they begin making plans for all of the children they would have. Him: “First, we will have a Papageno.” Her: “Then, we will have a Papagena.” Him: “Then, another Papageno.” “Papagena!” “Papageno!” “Papagena!” in an escalating contest of how many boys and girls they will have. Eventually, they begin to sing of how all of them will be welcomed and loved. It’s a very sweet duet- but it is also a duet deeply rooted in a strictly binary understanding of gender. And I extrapolated from that a scenario in which Papageno would have very traditional ideas about what his sons would do and be like- as would Papagena with her daughters.
(below: Cory Pollard, our Papageno, and Katrina Seabright, our Papagena, in three moments from the first duet)
So what should that sharply-delineated Pink & Blue world of Papageno and Papagena look like? That was tricky. In Mozart’s original opera, the character of Papageno seems to be pretty goofy as well as a bit of a coward – but that’s at least partly because he has been plucked out of his normal life and thrust into something completely unfamiliar and rather terrifying. But Papageno is also portrayed quite often by energetic and athletic baritones (Nathan Gunn, a star of multiple sports, is perhaps my favorite singer in the role) and that was where I anchored the character in my sequel. And it made even more sense because the singer in workshop who was going to be my Papageno, Cory Pollard, has been tirelessly working out nearly every day for the last two years – and looks like it. He would be perfect for the role. And our other tenor, Bennett Shebesta, who is two years younger, a bit slighter in build (although in pretty good shape himself) and well able to project the vulnerability of the son, would be similarly perfect for his role as Papageno’s youngest son. So Papageno became a dad obsessed with training his sons to follow in his footsteps as a bird-catcher, with an ambitious regimen of running and weight training that his first 14 sons had all loved …. but which didn’t fit the 15th and final son at all.
(below: Bennett Shebesta (Son #15) and Cory Pollard (Papageno) in rehearsal)
In contrast to Papageno and his son, I created Papagena as the typical 1950’s housewife who is completely obsessed with making her home as sparkling clean as possible – and she has trained all 15 of her daughters on how to use a broom, a mop, and especially a feather duster. (Only in this moment, as I typed those words, did it first occur to me that the presence of a feather duster in an opera titled Birds of a Feather is doubly fitting.) Nothing makes Papagena happier than cleaning her house, and the joy nearly explodes from her. “There is nothing so nice as a beautiful home,” she sings, ” and if I could put it into words, this house would be a poem!” I have no idea how clean our Katrina Seabright keeps her dorm room, but she certainly has both the sparkling personality and sparkling voice that the role requires. And by wonderful contrast, our mezzo soprano Faith Albright, one of the most energetic people I know, would be ideal as the youngest daughter who is perhaps a bit of a tom boy and finds it impossible to share her mother’s breathless enthusiasm for dusting (although she really tries)
(below: Katrina Seabright as Papagena and Faith Albright as Daughter #15)
For our fifth singer, KD Daly, I fashioned a role that I call The Speaker – since there is a somewhat mysterious figure in Mozart’s original opera that is called The Speaker. I didn’t necessarily intend for this character to be that original character transplanted into this new opera – although the character certainly could be seen that way. At any rate, The Speaker is an invisible observer of the events of the opera – and at two different points in the story, intervenes to help the characters see new possibilities. KD is a naturally sincere and expressive singer, and I carefully crafted the role to reflect her qualities as a singer.
(below: KD Daly as The Speaker)
After the initial duet and the opening soliloquy from The Speaker, we see Papageno running Son #15 through a typically demanding workout routine, which leaves the son feeling exhausted and defeated – and Papagena takes Daughter #15 through a dusting routine that she finds excruciatingly boring. After the parents leave, we see the son and daughter sing to themselves “This isn’t me. This is not who I was meant to be.”
The Speaker, an unseen observer of all this, reflects on how heartbreaking it is to see these two young people trying so desperately to fulfill the expectations of their parents – but feeling miserable in the attempt. “My child, how I wish you knew – that the only thing you have to do – is be true to the one and only you.” The Speaker then takes out an artifact from Mozart’s original opera – Papageno’s magic bells – (“I don’t have any magic spells… but I DO have Papageno’s magic bells. These trusty-now rusty magic bells. These magic bells have lost their touch. By now, they can’t do very much. But they still have the power to open up eyes- and sometimes that it all you need to find a sweet surprise.”)
And with those bells, The Speaker draws the daughter’s attention over to her brother – and before you know it, they are comparing notes on each other’s ‘projects’ – with the daughter offering advice to her brother on the proper technique for lifting weights (“that would go a lot better if you lift with your legs. Otherwise you’re likely to lay a very painful egg!”)
The brother concedes the wisdom of her sister’s advice, before turning the tables with some advice of his own on her dusting technique. (“Now here’s a helpful notion. Try using a circular motion.”)
What ensues is a joyous and rollicking rondo in which the two of them find themselves lost in the joy of doing what feels SO much more natural than what they were doing before. (“What a joy! What a pleasure! It’s like finding buried treasure! It feels so wonderful to be free to be me!”)
Their rapturous duet is interrupted by the parents, who are horrified by the sight of Son #15 in an apron and Daughter #15 lifting weights. Deeply shaken, the parents try to explain to the kids what is so wrong about what they were doing. (“The world is divided in two: Girls are Pink and Boys are Blue.”)
The kids are crushed by the criticism – while the parents seems not to have any idea of what they have done. (“I think we handed that just right. Our explanation was air-tight. We have spared them an awful lot of pain – and spared ourselves a lot of stress and strain.”) At that moment, The Speaker rings the Papageno bells to help the parents see how distraught their children are – so the parents know what their words have done to them.
Papageno and Papagena never wanted to hurt their children – and they find themselves able to open up their hearts to embrace them exactly as they are.
At the end of the opera, the five characters directly address the audience with the central message of the opera: “Like butterflies imprisoned in a jar, you have to set them free to be who they really are.”
Just because it’s easy doesn’t make it good.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re wise.
You’ll learn all this and more when you open up your eyes.
So welcome surprises and usher in the new!
Have a sense of adventure in all you see and do.
And above all, be loving, faithful and true
to the one and only YOU.
What was intimidating about this undertaking was that I did it without Matt Boresi, the brilliant librettist with whom I collaborated on Black September. For that project, I was responding to Matt’s marvelous words, and it almost felt like I was just excavating music that was already imbedded in the text rather than creating music from scratch. But for this, I was creating everything right from the start – and it was one of the scariest things I have ever attempted.
I may not have had a librettist with which to collaborate – but I had five talented and committed singers who were more than enough inspiration for me. I really crafted this score with the five of them in mind, both in terms of their voices and personalities, and in the end that made all the difference in the world. And when it came to the actual crafting of the score, some inspiration actually came from Mr. Mozart himself; I ended up slipping in five different musical quotes from Magic Flute into my score, and if I ever decide to revise or expand the piece, it would be fun to try and slip in a few more. I also need to acknowledge the wonderful work of Allison Hull. It’s challenging enough to direct an opera that you already know; imagine staging an opera that two weeks earlier did not even exist. I really give Allison a lot of credit for responding to the opera with such enthusiasm and energy and for creating such an imaginative production. And of course, I am thankful to Ray Watson, whose sparkling smile and courageous heart was never far from my mind as I was crafting this score.
