Questions of the month (April 2008)
From now on I shall answer here the questions sent to the confidential e-mail address you have been provided with.
"Is composing for an opera different than composing for other symphonic pieces?"
Yes; the voice is also an instrument, but it is the only one which passes on a true message and not only an emotion. I was an opera singer in a previous life, and that facilitates things for me a little.
To me, an opera isn't just a symphonic opus with an added sung part. I build the opera around the sung text, around the tone of the language, the natural rhythm of the syllables and the words, the intention expressed by the sentence, etc. Therefore the libretto is the spinal column of the ensemble; the music, that is the main part, it is all the rest; she gives life to the word, and enlivens a rhythm of delivery necessarily different from the spoken voice. The imperatives are always the same: it is necessary to respect the singers and their ranges; the writing of the melodic line must allow them to breathe naturally. They must also be able to sing without having to deliver the sound volume of a Boeing 747 taking off!
"In which musical style do you write?"
My writing is post-romantic, but does not prohibit any other approach according to the needs of a scene. In this regard I feel very close to the Danish composer Rued Langgaard.
"Can we listen to some excerpts one day? When will the opera be finished?"
Yes: you can listen to excerpts of the prelude next month. It is a little bit unusual, don't you think?: to record an opera while it's being written! The end? I don't know. The end of 2008? 2009? It is an enormous job and I try to dedicate approximately 35 hours every week to it. But I'm already working on the future recording; I have to look for interpreters and write this chronicle for you.
A writing chronicle
I began January 9th (but these last weeks were dedicated to the other quoted tasks). At the beginning, I wrote rather quickly and I gladly imagined that I'd have everything finished for summer! It was obviously impossible. Falling necessarily back upon past and future writing moderated my enthusiasm. Why be moreover pressured? This writing in the "long run" promises to be an incredible pleasure, better than that which I know after writing a symphonic piece.
Some surprises add flavour to the entire piece. The first, it is the possible total duration of the opus. By comparing my Libretto to some others, my first estimation was: one hour and a half (two acts). Mostly, it is around two hours (excluding the works of Wagner or Shostakovich). A more precise recent simulation now gives a possible duration of 2 hours and 45 minutes (with an hour and 45 minutes for the second act)!
So I am going to shorten this text which lacks balance, without changing anything essential, naturally.
The second surprise was noticing that the musical writing of a character could modify the way I understood him! After writing two scenes, I discovered that Padre Pio and the Man in Black are more supplementary than I had felt. As if one was everything that the other one secretly dreamed of being and what the music translates. Could writing an opera take the place of a catharsis?
