In 2003 and 2004, I struggled to hammer out a libretto for a music-theater piece. The experience was so nerve-wracking (because every additional day that I spent flailing with words meant one less day to compose the music under and around them) that I swore never again to play wordsmith.
Last year or so, I started hatching an idea for a new music-theater piece. Per the above, I resolved not to take it beyond possibly sketching a synopsis until I could find a proper poet to flesh it out in verse, and it's only last month that I started doing the barest of research to generate an outline, much less a complete synopsis.
Somehow, enough time has passed since my prior trauma that, instead of systematically completing that outline, and then a synopsis ... over the past few days, I started drafting the actual texts for an opening chorus and aria. I'm not sure what, exactly, nudged me over the edge. It might have been the realization a couple of weeks ago that the piece ought not to take the form of an opera, but rather, an oratorio. Or it might have been the realization that the poetry ought not rise to too high a standard (i.e., it will be much funnier as pure kitsch). And, weirdly enough, it might have arisen from volunteering to write music (not words) for someone else who previously has written about opera, and is now thinking of writing her first libretto.
But there you have it: words, words, words (well, 82 of them, anyway), in various degrees of rhyme & meter, at a level suitable to start creating music along the way, instead of waiting for a complete libretto. Here's hoping I can keep this rolling in the weeks and months ahead.
Last year or so, I started hatching an idea for a new music-theater piece. Per the above, I resolved not to take it beyond possibly sketching a synopsis until I could find a proper poet to flesh it out in verse, and it's only last month that I started doing the barest of research to generate an outline, much less a complete synopsis.
Somehow, enough time has passed since my prior trauma that, instead of systematically completing that outline, and then a synopsis ... over the past few days, I started drafting the actual texts for an opening chorus and aria. I'm not sure what, exactly, nudged me over the edge. It might have been the realization a couple of weeks ago that the piece ought not to take the form of an opera, but rather, an oratorio. Or it might have been the realization that the poetry ought not rise to too high a standard (i.e., it will be much funnier as pure kitsch). And, weirdly enough, it might have arisen from volunteering to write music (not words) for someone else who previously has written about opera, and is now thinking of writing her first libretto.
But there you have it: words, words, words (well, 82 of them, anyway), in various degrees of rhyme & meter, at a level suitable to start creating music along the way, instead of waiting for a complete libretto. Here's hoping I can keep this rolling in the weeks and months ahead.
