...thy course pursue

Ok, the last time I wrote an entry about my “process” (here) I spoke about gathering information.

This includes:

• Source material
• Musical resources
• Sometimes videos of other productions
• Images

What next? Well, then I soak in this information, reading the books a couple of times if possible. I listen to the CDs in the car (especially on long distance drives)… and I wait for the “muse” to hit. For this show, there were 2 main elements that helped me focus the piece. Today I will speak a bit about a musical element:

Dido’s Lament

In this, the climactic end of the opera, there is a “ground bass” figure that is 5 measures long. There are, I believe, 13 iterations of this figure. Interestingly, the vocal lines are typically about 4 measures long, meaning they don’t “line up”….until the very end of the piece. This give the aria a feeling of constant unfolding… the ground bass gently but relentlessly pushes Dido to her final destiny. Purcell is a genius, what can I say?

I love love love when the action onstage subtly (or not) reinforces a musical element that might not be immediately obvious to the average listener. So I thought, what if we incorporate a gesture that lasts the length of that ground bass figure… that is picked up by one person after another in the chorus (chorus of 12)… and finally, at the very end by Dido... number 13? I think a large, repetitive motion can be so hypnotic onstage. I love the idea that everyone participates in her mourning…it is almost a funeral ritual, even before she dies.

This is the stuff I get excited about when I am trying to fall asleep at night. Then I have to get up and write it all down before I “lose” it.
This particular section might have gone a lot of different ways….

• Maybe everyone leaves the stage or turns their back to her, leaving her alone in her grief.
• Maybe I could have the witches creep in and hand her the knife.
• Maybe I could have her slowly remove her makeup and clothing, preparing for death.
• Maybe we could enact a really realistic funeral procession.
• Maybe she could stab and kill everyone in her court.

Actually just writing that stuff down kind of sparks ideas in mind. The brain is an amazing thing, eh?

Anyway, so I call up my choreographer Dominic Walsh and explain my idea to him and he loves it. And there is the heart of the piece, fairly settled upon. And this is how it works for me… I put together pieces, big and small, and they begin to form a whole.

Coming up: another big piece to the puzzle…