Doug' New Opera

I keep mentioning that I'm working on a new opera, but I never get a chance to mention any specifics. To catch you up: I wrote my first opera, showed it around, and nobody had the interest or resources to produce my little epic. I was just too ambitious and, even though I consider it to be one of the best things I've ever written, it will probably never be heard.  Such is life.

So for my second opera, I decided to make everything as different as possible. It will be short (75 to 90 minutes, no intermission), it will be economical (four singers, an orchestra of three), and it will be portable (no set). My goal is college productions, the Cincy Fringe Festival, and/or a tour of local schools.

My manner of writing this opera is also completely different. For opera #1, I wrote a play and set it to music. It's a continuous score with recurring motifs in the tradition of Debussy.  Opera #2 is a number opera – a series of individual songs connected by talking and melodrama, more like "The Magic Flute." "Postcards From Morocco" is a big structural influence as well, since it features the characters singing a series of songs to the audience.  So instead of working out all the text first, I'm taking it one song at a time.  Here's my process:

1. After doing all my research, I figured out what needs to be said and who needs to say it. Then I wrote out a paragraph or two in their voice, outlining what I want each character to say and what I want each song to accomplish.

2. Next, I'll write a piece of music that captures the emotion of what the character is saying.

3. Finally, I'll rephrase the paragraph into verse to fit the rhythms of the music.  Often, I'll need to adjust the music a little to fit the words. It's a tailoring process.

So there's a lot of back-and forth. I've also been careful with the tone of each piece, making sure that it leads into the next piece without an abrupt jump in style.  After years of composing, I've come to realize that my best energy comes at the beginning of a project. So I've decided to write this opera backwards. I wrote the introduction music first and then the finale and have been working my way backwards, song by song, with very little skipping.

I'm about two-thirds done and I have three arias and two choruses to complete. Then I can focus on the book (the talking parts), adjust the lyrics and music, and finish by writing the underscores that connect many of the songs.

A New Opera

I'm proud to announce that I've started in earnest on my second opera!  It will be called "Heart Mountain" and, like my first opera, "Mata Hari," it will be an original story based around historical events.

What about the first opera, you ask?  Well, it seems I was a little too ambitious with that one.  It's a big three-act production with lots of roles, a chorus, and a big orchestra in the pit and no opera company wanted to/was able to risk the expense for a brand-new, untested opera.  Their loss.

So I've planned this new opera to be the complete opposite in nearly every way:

Mata Hari: 4 main roles, 6 minor roles, plus a chorus (20 singers total)
Heart Mountain: 4 singers total

Mata Hari: 35 to 40-piece orchestra in the pit
Heart Mountain: Piano, 'Cello, Clarinet, all on stage with the singers

Mata Hari: Three acts, two hours
Heart Mountain: One act, 60 minutes (80 tops)

Mata Hari: Three sets
Heart Mountain: A wall.  Otherwise, no sets.

Mata Hari: Declamatory style, with singing throughout. Basically a sung play.
Heart Mountain: A "number" opera with some talking between songs. The same idea as "The Magic Flute"

My idea is to make it as economical as possible, with only eight to ten people involved: four singers, three musicians, a director, and one or two technical personnel to handle lighting and stage manage.  I'm writing the clarinet part for myself and it's possible that one of the singers or musicians could direct.  Or the director could be a stagehand.  It's something we could bring to schools or to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in a few years. My hope is that Heart Mountain will open some doors that will lead to Mata Hari getting produced.

So far, I've done a lot of research, created the story, planned everything in an outline, and have written the introduction music and one of the songs.  Instead of polishing the libretto and then adding music like I did with Mata Hari, I'm going to write the music and lyrics together, letting one inform the other as I go.  I've only just begun and I'm a long way from finishing, but the first steps in a very long journey are laid out and I'm on my way!

Doug's New Opera: The Libretto

So, yes, I've written an opera. I've written symphonies, ballet scores, concertos, chamber music, and countless pieces for string orchestra, but there's one challenge for composers above all others and I thought it was time to take it on.

The first and most time-consuming task was to write the libretto - probably the most important aspect of an opera. Operas are about music, but it must have a compelling story and interesting characters. Good music can't save a bad story. I decided to write the libretto myself rather than finding someone else for purely selfish reasons. I've seen it happen before; if the libretto is good, people will focus on that and not the music. An opera is a lot of work and I want to get credit for my efforts and my vision.

I started the whole project with a concept and then organized my characters. I don't want to go into the plot details, but the libretto is based on real historical people in a purely ficticious situation. So once I decided on the concept, I had to ask myself questions: Who is involved in this story? What motivates them? How would they react and interact with each other? What do they want from each other? After that was decided, the plot fell into place.

Next, I created an outline of events and wrote the first draft of, what I felt, was a pretty good play. Dialogue was the tricky part. I wanted each character to have a unique speech pattern, like real people do. Since the main character was very quotable, I assembled as many direct quotes as I could and replaced the dialogue in my draft with her quotes. Of course, I had to take a lot out of context, but I got a good feel for her vocabulary and speech rhythms and filled in the rest of the dialogue with words to match her speech pattern. Other characters weren't nearly as quotable, so I found modern celebrities whose personalities and backgrounds matched and used their quotes as the basis for my dialogue. In total, about a third of my libretto consists of direct quotes.

Five or six drafts later, I had my completed libretto which, printed out in single-spaced screenplay format, came to 60 pages. As I set the words to music I would delete or change lines here and there and the finished text now takes up about 54 pages.
The whole writing process, from developing the concept to research to writing and editing the libretto took about a year.