May 19, 2012: bite-sized opera

Here are a few of my entries for the English National Opera's "Mini Operas" Script competition....perhaps appropriately, they each came to me within minutes.  They are supposed to be 5-7 minutes long, which is a very difficult way of writing a script; some composers take 7 minutes to elaborate on only a few lines of rhyming lines, while others could jam-pack whole conversations into that time period.  Using my dramatic/character ideas, I tried to imagine what lines I would want to stretch out with musical expression, what might go by very quickly.  In any case, I wrote things I'd like to compose music for (if I was remotely talented in that field), or that I'd want to sing in myself.


A Family of Watching

FATHER:
You've heard the story before:
A love for the ages, a horrible meltdown.  Desperate passion unfulfilled.
Those two lovers make the rest of us cringe with jealousy and disgust.
What if it was your brother, your college roommate, or your work colleague.
Does it matter who it is?
The story is not them.  It is us.  The watchers. The envious voyeurs.

MOTHER:
I smile through pain.

SISTER:
 I pluck my eyebrows.

COUSIN:
I tattoo my rage.

UNCLE:
I rarely act my age.

WHOLE FAMILY
We've watched those lovers, our lovers
Jealously guarding their dreams of happiness.
Jealously guarding our joy in their failure.
We are watching others live and we love to let them lose their way.
One more day watching is just a day.