One, an opera in one scene

Hi all! This is my newest piece, a 15 minute opera scene I've been writing in collaboration with singers and directors from the opera department at my school. Opera Etudes is the name of the program, where a group of composers work closely with singers and through early-on improvisation sessions and lots of work, eventually put on an opera scene. This year there are 6 composers, and I'm one of them. Our overall topic this year is 'epiphanies', so each one of our scenes has something to do with an epiphany.

My scene is about one woman's struggle to deal with her emotions about an abusive relationship. She has repressed her feelings so much that she has created a physical manifestation of them, who starts the scene and eventually gets the woman to face her true self, which ends in death.

If you follow along with the score, hopefully how I've constructed the piece will be clear. Listening to it, I hope one gets a feeling of gradual growing dissonance, just as the story parallels that idea with its complexity and emotional tension. But on the more technical side, it clearly does get more dissonant, as I add more tonal centers on top of one another and shift rhythms more frequently. The whole piece is based off of a 5-note chord: in F: A-Bb-C-Eb-F (major chord with b7 and 4th thrown in). The beginning starts with the chord switching between two keys - Ab and F, using Eb and C as common tones. As the tension grows, I add, one at a time, different chords and have them cycle through in order, almost like as one would use a 12-tone row. This helped the composition of the piece, like I was almost following a predetermined harmonic path. Towards the end there are 7 or 8 chords being alternated between, creating harmonic ambiguity and a great amount of tension.

We are currently in rehearsals. The Opera Etudes performance of all six new opera scenes will be April 29th at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD. If you are nearby, come see it - it's free! My piece has been picked out of the six to be put on Peabody's 150th anniversary Gala event on April 26th, which is quite an honor and it will hopefully open up other opportunities to me in the near future.

I have attached a pdf of the score, a MIDI, and a copy of the libretto. Everything is copyright 2008 by myself.

Please enjoy and as always, I will greatly appreciate any comments! Thanks.

Well this is a nice piece of work.
Very compelling, and shows you've a knack both for natural setting of text (the conversational bits work well), and for drama.

Your 2nd-y chords do a good job - the chords instantly set the mood upon my listening days after I first heard it.... so they've obviously stuck in my head.
Your melodic and chordal choices throughout are distinctive - which is good.

You might want to watch that you don't thicken the texture too much (at places like pages 15-18, and the place just before the marking CC). Too many, and too thick clusters begin to tire the ear out.

The rhythmic variation and control throughout was good.
I thought it might have been nice to end on a unison, given the subject matter, but oh well! The whole last 'singing in harmony' section was very nice.

Well balanced - I like it, and congratulations on your being chosen for performance!

Thanks Daniel! I agree - I thickened it up a bit too much a little too early! But I don't see a good way of changing it right now. I want to eventually orchestrate it, so that will be a great help to shape the piece more gradually.

Thanks for listening, and the comments!

will there be a recording of this?

You aren't inspired by Stephen Sondheim by any chance are you? (Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd)

I really enjoyed this piece of music. I have nothing to say except 'frig that would be hard to perform'...but man, what a delight. I love how random it is, but yet it isnt?

Kind of strange storyline, but yea...i got it in the end (i didnt read your blurb until after haha). I hope you get it recorded, whether in video or mp3. would totally love to hear it without cheap midi

I really enjoyed it!

Oops! Sorry it's taken me so long to respond.

To drumultima - no, not yet. Hopefully there will be a DVD of it coming shortly. I should be able to get just an audio version of it soon.
To goodridge - thanks for listening! Stephen Sondheim actually IS one of my inspirations. It's those suspended chords, isn't it? Thanks for your comments!

So, the performances went really well. Everything went smoothly and I couldn't have asked for better performers. (except that damn vibraphone player! ) I'll put up an mp3 or something once I get it!

Haha, yes...the suspended chords...and nonsensical (but seemingly, sensical) lyrics.
Good job.

Fantastic. I take it you like minimalism and/or Messiaen?

I don't know what I'd do to change it. In fact I wouldn't. The dramatic intensity is perfect and text setting shows me exactly what your insight into the libretto is. Good work. I'll look forward to the orchestration. I suppose (and hope) that you'll keep the vibe part prominent in it.

Wow. I loved the moment the vibraphone quavers in 4/4 on C came back in after she stabbed her, it sent shivers down my spine - as if it was giving new, urgent and confused meaning to the motif we'd heard many times before. Would love to hear a real performance, and especially an orchestrated version.

Very Nice. I really liked it. You have very good emotional transitions in the music. The vocals are also written very well to help convey the text. Great job! The only criticism I have is sometimes, you seem to emphasis a word that is not as important as others in the sentence. For example, sometimes words like "is, the, of" etc. seem to get the biggest emphasis. The only other advice is maybe have your vibraphone go to other mallet instruments for different timbres/character personifications via instrumentation. If this is possible, of course, for a performance.

Keep in mind, this is very minor. In the end, the music kept me as the listener interested and it was well executed! Great job.