Playwrights at the Opera

Michael Korie interviews librettists for the latest edition of The Dramatist

How much drama can you accomplish in 15 seconds? The Debate Society asked. We responded.

So lovely to hear Thomas Hampson and Francesca Zambello on Medici tv….
http://www.medici.tv/#!/9-11-opera-musica-euronews

On September 8th, ‘Heart of a Soldier’, the opera written by Christopher Theofandis will be broadcast on the radio. http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=1,1,41,46

Based on the life of Rick Rescorla, ‘Heart of a Soldier’,  follows the training of a hard-drinking, easy-going man from Cornwall, England who collided with a Yank while they were both soldiers of fortune in Northern Africa.  From that moment on, Rescorla is on a path to become a U.S. citizen, an Army captain, a platoon leader in Vietnam , and a veteran who searches for meaning in a world too crowded with civilians.

One of the aspects of Rescorla, rendered so poignantly in the non-fiction book by James B. Stewart on which the opera is based, was Rick’s dazzling smile.  A hard to resist smile.  A smile that drew people to him.  His most seductive weapon.

Thomas Hampson, the melliferous baritone, owns one of those also.  His performance was double barreled in the San Francisco premiere last September–voice and grin to match.   So how does this work on radio?  Where does the smile reside?  How does the audience hear it?

I hope you’ll tune in, Saturday September 8th, Noon to 4 p.m.

Heart of a Soldier will be broadcast on over 200 radio stations across the country on September 8.

Most radio websites now allow you to stream this online.
The actual original WFMT radio station in Chicago, where the broadcast originates for instance, streams live at:
http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=4,5,24

The broadcast times for other stations vary by region. In NYC it will be on
WQXR (96.3 FM). 

Here, also is the list of operas that San Francisco will broadcast this fall-

http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=12,10,5,6

A list of all the radio stations nationwide that will broadcast Heart of a Soldier:

http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=12,10,5,6,1

 

Ending up a few days with Theatermakers at the O’Neill Center. After a night of new musicals, Maria Goyanes has joined us to give a lecture on leadership. I’d follow her anywhere.

Heidi Rodewald and I wrote a quick and dirty first draft of The Good Swimmer when we were artists-in-residence at the O’Neill Musical Theater Conference last summer. Stew has now joined us and he began by adding back-up vocals. Now we ask these questions: How do the vocals created as ‘back up,’ become the eerie soundtrack? How do they alter environment and time? How do we start once again?

We plan on recording some new songs in July, and have a workshop planned for February to hear this new beginning. I’ll be posting about both.

Another project is mostly rewrites but that process is also to begin again. My collaborator and I meet and we ask each other: “What if?” “What if” instead, we start with the image of a woman alone in the middle of a vast empty grassland, clutching a rifle to protect her sleeping children? “What if” we start with the sound of distant cowboys? “What if…” and “what” are the consequences of that ‘if.’

The questions we ask determine the answers we discover. Hopefully our experience and education have lent us a surfeit of answers. And ways of making new wheels. We are so often told, as writers, not to re-invent the wheel. I say, re-invent. Add new spokes, change the surface tread, add hub caps and chains.