Performance Notes

This is an opera intended for performance outside the opera house. The reasons are many. First, amplification is verboten in opera houses, but it is a part of our lives, in nearly all the music we listen to. Second, Nineteenth-century vocal styles still rule the raked stages though it is not the voice of our era nor of my country. Economically, the cost of mounting a large scale production is forbidding, and that monetary pressure doesn't encourage opera houses to take chances. So those who seek to take risks in exploring new territory must find smaller, more hospitable homes.

My last opera had a large cast and though it received a production, I knew I needed a simpler, more economical piece if I wanted it to be seen by a larger, audience. What would be more economical than a one-man opera? I also had an interest in exploring a new compositional technique I'd recently come across...

virtual motion employs some experimental lip-sync techniques developed by composer John Moran. My application of the technique, however, is diametrically opposed to his. In Moran's work, like his 1995 opera Mathew in the School of Life, several people play one character - all wearing identical costumes - in a show with a dozen characters. The lip-syncing created perfect vocal unity for each character. I then had the idea to flip this on its head and have one performer play many characters.

In this lip-sync process, the text is spoken and sampled prior to production. The sampled lines are then reassembled and recorded within the texture of a musical composition (often after passing through effects processors). Though these lines are not spoken with specific pitches, they take on a musical quality because of their repetition and specific placement.

The musical score is created from three sources: synthesized sounds, sampled sounds, and live instruments digitally recorded. The technical limitations of home-studio hard disk digital recording encourages the repetition and looping of short phrases (1 to 8 bars) which lends itself to a post-minimalist aesthetic.

In addition to traditional pitch and percussion instruments, the score also employs samples of both real and cartoon sound effects which allow for heightened, non-naturalistic movement-theatre I call live-action animation.

In addition to the lip-syncing, the piece is one-third sung. The singing passages occur more often as the opera unravels and the emotional dynamic expands. The score is always intended to be played from a recorded medium in live performance. It is through the contrast of sung versus spoken, recorded versus live and danced versus naturally moved to, that the opera develops its aesthetic tension.