Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal theater critic and author
“How to Write an Opera (In One Easy Lesson?)”
Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
Keene Hall, Room 119, R.D. Keene Music Building, Rollins College
by Eric Pinder
TheDailyCity.com Opera Reviewer
Your intrepid correspondent got to Rollins with enough time to spare, picked up a berry smoothie from Powerhouse Cafe as a quick breakfast and headed over to the Bush Executive Center for the first talk with noted critic for the Wall Street Journal and other publications, Terry Teachout. In true Orlando fashion, every part of the building was named for either a donor or a corporation. The Sun Trust Auditorium was no exception. It's a lovely wood-paneled room with ornate metal chandeliers. Yours truly forgot to place the memory card back in the camera, so there are no pictures. You'll just have to imagine it - or visit it yourself sometime.
A tech came into the auditorium to set up the mic and did the usual "Check one, check two" and an older man asked "Who writes your script?" Just goes to show that everyone's a critic. Although, interestingly, no other professional critics from local media seemed to be in attendance. They placed Terry's microphone on him in the hallway, so we were able to hear him say that he'd finished "a polished first draft of a play" and he was meeting with producers in February.
Among the many interesting points he made, he said he felt the role of a critic was to convey enthusiasm, when felt, for a performance. A critic should function as a consumer guide to spread the word about what is good and what can be skipped. Some of your correspondent's favorite quotes: "Theatre slips through your fingers as it happens." "I want to be surprised at what's happening. If I'm not surprised, I'm probably not paying attention."
He also discussed an article he wrote last week where he described seeing someone text in the theater during a show. He was looking for positives in this behavior. He noted that there was an opera company in NYC that asked people to text and vote to see what ending they wanted in Mozart's opera 'Cosi Fan Tutte'. So clearly this sort of thing is not going to be going away.
His other talk took place in the Keene Music Building - Room 119. This is a nice space that I'm sure doubles as an orchestral rehearsal room and a small concert hall. It had this modern art feel with squares of painted color hung as artwork. They were mauve and purple - like a sedate Price Is Right. The focus here was on writing an opera libretto. He had just completed that task by writing the words for the opera "The Letter" which most people know as a movie with Bette Davis and her eyes. He talked about opera as a "primary color medium" meaning that it works best when it sticks to subjects like love, sex, death and treachery, but not maybe in that order.
He discussed adapting a short story for opera and specifically his experience with turning the Maugham short story "The Letter" into a workable opera libretto. He told a story about the composer of the opera, Paul Moravec, talking to Steven Sondheim (?!?!? - Your intrepid correspondent wonders how you just get Steven Freaking Sondheim's number - but then again he's not a Pultizer Prize winning composer) about writing the words as though they were set in poem form, even if they aren't poetry or rhyme. Both Teachout and the composer thought that characters should go through "imaginative transformations" so they tried to humanize the Bette Davis character. Favorite quote: "Putting words to existing music is like a crossword puzzle that has to be beautiful."
Yours truly may have inadvertently upset Mr. Teachout by posing a question about the sources for John Adams' libretto for his opera Doctor Atomic which used letters, poems, and autobiographies to tell the story of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico with Oppenheimer and whether the choices made for good drama. He didn't think so, and also seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about the success of that opera. A good lesson for the future: Don't ask about the competition.
“How to Write an Opera (In One Easy Lesson?)”
Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
Keene Hall, Room 119, R.D. Keene Music Building, Rollins College
by Eric Pinder
TheDailyCity.com Opera Reviewer
Your intrepid correspondent got to Rollins with enough time to spare, picked up a berry smoothie from Powerhouse Cafe as a quick breakfast and headed over to the Bush Executive Center for the first talk with noted critic for the Wall Street Journal and other publications, Terry Teachout. In true Orlando fashion, every part of the building was named for either a donor or a corporation. The Sun Trust Auditorium was no exception. It's a lovely wood-paneled room with ornate metal chandeliers. Yours truly forgot to place the memory card back in the camera, so there are no pictures. You'll just have to imagine it - or visit it yourself sometime.
A tech came into the auditorium to set up the mic and did the usual "Check one, check two" and an older man asked "Who writes your script?" Just goes to show that everyone's a critic. Although, interestingly, no other professional critics from local media seemed to be in attendance. They placed Terry's microphone on him in the hallway, so we were able to hear him say that he'd finished "a polished first draft of a play" and he was meeting with producers in February.
Among the many interesting points he made, he said he felt the role of a critic was to convey enthusiasm, when felt, for a performance. A critic should function as a consumer guide to spread the word about what is good and what can be skipped. Some of your correspondent's favorite quotes: "Theatre slips through your fingers as it happens." "I want to be surprised at what's happening. If I'm not surprised, I'm probably not paying attention."
He also discussed an article he wrote last week where he described seeing someone text in the theater during a show. He was looking for positives in this behavior. He noted that there was an opera company in NYC that asked people to text and vote to see what ending they wanted in Mozart's opera 'Cosi Fan Tutte'. So clearly this sort of thing is not going to be going away.
His other talk took place in the Keene Music Building - Room 119. This is a nice space that I'm sure doubles as an orchestral rehearsal room and a small concert hall. It had this modern art feel with squares of painted color hung as artwork. They were mauve and purple - like a sedate Price Is Right. The focus here was on writing an opera libretto. He had just completed that task by writing the words for the opera "The Letter" which most people know as a movie with Bette Davis and her eyes. He talked about opera as a "primary color medium" meaning that it works best when it sticks to subjects like love, sex, death and treachery, but not maybe in that order.
He discussed adapting a short story for opera and specifically his experience with turning the Maugham short story "The Letter" into a workable opera libretto. He told a story about the composer of the opera, Paul Moravec, talking to Steven Sondheim (?!?!? - Your intrepid correspondent wonders how you just get Steven Freaking Sondheim's number - but then again he's not a Pultizer Prize winning composer) about writing the words as though they were set in poem form, even if they aren't poetry or rhyme. Both Teachout and the composer thought that characters should go through "imaginative transformations" so they tried to humanize the Bette Davis character. Favorite quote: "Putting words to existing music is like a crossword puzzle that has to be beautiful."
Yours truly may have inadvertently upset Mr. Teachout by posing a question about the sources for John Adams' libretto for his opera Doctor Atomic which used letters, poems, and autobiographies to tell the story of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico with Oppenheimer and whether the choices made for good drama. He didn't think so, and also seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about the success of that opera. A good lesson for the future: Don't ask about the competition.