At the moment, I am at a complete loss for adequate words. Perhaps I will write something more substantive and worthwhile later. But in the meantime: this is the end of an era, a seismic shift not only in American musical theatre but in American music.
”Anything you do
let it come from you
then it will be new
give us more to see…”
Matthew Aucoin is a man of many talents. A recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant at only 28, Aucoin is a true musical wunderkind; a successful conductor, composer, poet, librettist, critic, and pianist. In addition to his new opera “Eurydice” which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera Tuesday night, he has a newly released retrospective disc from the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in which he conducts and plays the piano with members of the American Modern Opera Company, an organization he co-founded with director Zack Winokur. On top of all that, he has a new book of essays coming out next month about his obsessions and ruminations on the operatic art form. Though a follower of his career as a composer and conductor for a few years now, it is his thoughtful writings on music that I find particularly inspired.
(© Marty Sohl / Met Opera)
Aucoin’s opera “Eurydice” tackles the operatic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice which depending on who you ask inspired the earliest surviving opera, Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Based off of Sarah Ruhl’s contemporary retelling of the myth from 2003, the opera focuses on Eurydice’s side of the story and her time in the Underworld which is largely absent from your average Orpheus opera. Ruhl, who penned the libretto for the opera, creates a timeless story about loss, memory, language, and communication; red meat for a composer/poet such as Aucoin.
In what has been highlighted as a bold stroke in the opera is Aucoin’s choice to give Orpheus a double. Orpheus, played by baritone Joshua Hopkins, is doubled in key moments with a shadow Orpheus sung by the countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński. Though indeed bold and innovative, there is a clear precedent for this theatrical device. And it is in another opera about Orpheus and Eurydice: the composer Harrison Birtwistle’s own three member personification of Orpheus in his 1986 opera “The Mask of Orpheus.” In it, Birtwistle represents the character with two singers (Orpheus The Man and Orpheus The Hero) and one silent dancer/mime (Orpheus The Myth). This double Orpheus in Aucoin’s interpretation is somewhat less successful than Birtwistle’s. In the Birtwistle, the opera is presented more as an ancient frieze frozen in time rather than a piece of theatre. “The Mask of Orpheus” is about the Orpheus myth rather than a dramatic retelling of it. In the case of Aucoin’s opera, the vocal doubling never quite fuses together. The baritone is always winning over the timbral game and leaving the poor countertenor as a distant vocal aftertaste.
Throughout “Eurydice,” one can tell which opera composers of the past and present Aucoin reveres the most: Verdi, Stravinsky, Britten, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Thomas Adès, etc. Though some of this knowledge can be gleaned from his writings about the operatic form, the score to “Eurydice” gives it away. The piece is wildly eclectic and agile, but sounds at times like a pastiche of his favorite composers. Indeed, interrogating the art form from various perspectives — as a conductor, writer, critic, pianist, and composer — there runs the risk of using this vast knowledge to create a new work of operatic quilting; a little atmospheric, wordless Saariaho chorus here, a triadic bit of harmonic slippage from Adès there, a hellish romp of neoclassical Stravinsky sprinkled about when Hades enters the picture. Composers of course construct their own musical languages atop the composers of the past, but Aucoin manages to present each of these found objects on their own without synthesizing them into a coherent musical whole. In short, an operatic language unique to Aucoin comes to the surface only in fits and starts.
Often times, the opera comes off as an opera about opera from a composer who clearly knows a great deal about the art form. It checks every box as if the opera were less a theatrical event and rather a book report about writing opera. Choosing the Orpheus and Eurydice myth as the subject matter for a new opera is already a decision which forces one to contend with the operatic tradition head on. Additionally, with Ruhl focusing so much on the nature of words as Eurydice relearns language, the poet side of Aucoin comes to the fore. Indeed, the text of the opera is projected onto the set. Some arias seem like etudes on particular types of text setting, as Aucoin discussed in a recent New York Review of Books piece analyzing Stravinsky’s setting of W.H. Auden. These various devices are rarely tied to a specific character or scene and occasionally disrupt the dramatic flow of the work. I would have rather these be integrated into the language of the work much like in the operas of George Benjamin where a character’s speech pattern and way of singing is both flexible and consistent.
In the end, it seems that this robust knowledge about the art form which I admire a great deal in the composer gets in the way of the opera. At times, “Eurydice” comes across as a series of successful sequences that work in older operas welded together to create a new one.
I wish Aucoin took his heroine’s advice to heart — keep going forward and don’t look backwards so much.
An actual, real, in the flesh, in person concert will be happening (my first in 18 months) this Wednesday up in Chicago! The Illinois Philharmonic will be premiering my Make Them Dance as part of a concert with two other world premieres. The pieces will be rehearsed “before your very eyes” and performed, showing the audience the creative process in action. If you happen to be in the Chicagoland area, come on over to the Marg Kallemeyn Theatre at 6:30 for an interesting evening of new music!
Two new concert films (music videos) of what is currently my entire saxophone oevure! The first, my warmonger, John Bolton inspired sax quartet Ain’t Gonna Study War No More played terrifyingly well by the Northwestern University Graduate Quartet. The second, the premiere of my saxophone and percussion duo Deep State, commissioned by the newly formed Duo Axon made of Derek Granger and Dan Ingman. After a year with almost no performances to speak of, I am so lucky to enter back into “concert life” with these two really fantastic performances!
For whatever reason during the pandemic times, I’ve been reading or re-reading what some would call “classic” American literature. I don’t know if this sudden interest into this country’s literary past was spurred by our collective reexamination of America this past summer or perhaps the renewed sense of patriotism I felt after almost seeing our democracy blown to smithereens earlier this year. Whatever it might have been, there was a copy of Twain, Hemingway, Whitman, Baldwin, Arthur Miller, or Tennessee Williams on my nightstand for the better part of the last year.
A play that I re-read was one I remember desisting when I was in my late teens for what I perceived to be its dripping sentimentality and overwhelming nostalgia; Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. I think it must have been a high school production nearly a decade ago that I watched in which I threw off this play. It is easily the most produced play in America, done all the time by small regional theatres, high schools, community theatres, and I’m sure by now a Zoom reading here and there. I chalked up most of its success to its spare production design of simply one single ladder, if that. It’s a cheap play to do, it’s about the “good old days” of the turn of the century, and the audience probably read it in school, adding nostalgia on top of a play which uses nostalgia as its key ingredient. Well of course I was dead wrong. Re-reading this play during this particular time in America completely knocked me sideways. It does not drip with nostalgia. It is, to paraphrase the actor Michael McKean, this little dewdrop of a town, but it's also the universe. It's also America. Living in a time of so much death and despair…this monologue which opens the third act seemed to encapsulate this time and also, hopefully, what we learned from this past year…
STAGE MANAGER: … Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take’m out and look at’m very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars…everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. (Pause.)
Happy Birthday Thornton!
Spring Mill State Park; Mitchell, IN
Well folks… spring is almost here and it seems like semi-live performances are on their way back! Even though the two performances in question will be either filmed or live-streamed, as we all get our shots, real live performances should be just around the corner.
There are two upcoming concerts this month which, by happenstance, are both pieces for saxophone(s). And by further happenstance are on the same day! Almost a full year with few performances and they all arrive back on the same day.
First, the graduate quartet at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music will release a filmed performance of my 'war-monger' quartet Ain't Gonna Study War No More as part of the school's New Music Conference. The performance will be released on April 24th. More info will be here.
Second, is the world premiere of Deep State, a sort of violent diatribe for soprano saxophone and percussion. The piece was commissioned by Derek Granger and Dan Ingman early in 2020 (the before times) and is in a way my own reaction to the rise of conspiratorial thinking during that year. They will premiere the piece at the North American Saxophone Conference at 5pm.
In the meantime, enjoy the bucolic Indiana photo above.
