But his catalog is deep and not everything in it was one for the ages.  His only full length opera “The Tender Land,” which is currently playing at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, is a reminder that even the beloved Copland was a fallible human.

Outgoing Glimmerglass general manager Michael MacLeod made an admirable, if economic, decision in resurrecting the piece and casting it entirely with members of the company’s Young American Artist program.  Some 800 singers apply every year for the program, one of more prestigious in the field.  The chosen few – there were 38 this year – usually spend the better part of their summer playing small roles, singing in the chorus, and waiting in the wings as understudies.

This year they were in the spotlight.  Too bad that they didn’t get a better opera to sink their teeth into.

“The Tender Land” (1952) is a troublesome piece primarily because of a thin story and the lousy libretto by Horace Everett (the pen name of Copland’s younger lover Erik Johns).  It goes back and forth from mundane dialogue to attempts at poetry.  The characters often announce their feelings (rather than letting the music communicate them) and certain words just get ground into the ground with repetition (“Will you hire a stranger? Yes, I’ll hire a stranger. Hey, he’ll hire a stranger. Now I’m not a stranger. No, you’re not a stranger”)

The score does up plenty of familiar, comforting Americana, especially in the lush instrumental writing. Glimmerglass’ former music director Stewart Robertson returned to conduct and got a mostly sumptuous sound from the orchestra. Occasionally the singers were covered a bit while some thin passages felt a bit frail and unsure.

Director Tazewell Thompson went for simplicity, an appropriate choice for the homespun theme and single unit set. Too often, though, he just didn’t give the singers enough to do. Some sprightlier tempos from Robertson might have also helped move things along.

On the other hand, at the end of the first act there was so much going on – the women doing chores, the men packing their bags – that it detracted from the brief pleasures of “The Promise of Living,” one of the opera’s two popular choruses.  The other, “Stomp Your Foot,” could have used a real choreographer.

As the lead character Laurie, soprano Lindsay Russell sang beautifully and negotiated the emotional turns about as well as could be expected.  In three short acts she goes being a moody school girl to a jilted women ready to face the world on her own.

Tenor Andrew Stenson as Martin had a sweet romantic voice, but it wasn’t quiet big enough for the house.  His companion Top was played with more gusto by baritone Mark Diamond.  As the grandfather, Joseph Barron hit all the bass notes with plenty of volume, but his authoritative anger was unvaried.  Of the adult characters, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Foley Davis as the mother gave the most believable and well-rounded performance.

I arrived at Glimmerglass hoping for the best from “The Tender Land,” having good memories of production at Bard College’s SummerScape festival in 2005. But that performance was in an even more intimate theatre (about 150 seats as I recall) and of a chamber version arranged by Murray Sidlin, who added some of Copland’s “Old American Songs” into the score.  They added some welcome life to the score and gave the chorus more to do.  Bard’s production standards are also on a higher level than Glimmerglass lately.  The sets for both productions had tall grasses in the background, yet Bard’s stage was a quarter the size and yet had far more interesting structural aspects.

Another kind of Americana is in store next summer at Glimmerglass, during Francesca Zambello’s first summer as the boss. The news that opera star Deborah Voigt will sing the lead in “Annie Get Your Gun” is a huge sign of the company’s new direction. (Read the full announcement of the 2011 season here.)

“Nothing that I’m performing is notated. I’m letting the melody of the language guide me through the story,” says Bagby, who will accompany himself on a six-string Celtic harp. “I do all kinds of different things with my voice, sometimes speaking, sometimes singing, sometimes something in between — all the possibilities of the human voice.”

Like many, Bagby first encountered the medieval classic during high school. He grew up in a Chicago suburb and currently lives in Paris. He’s long been known as a respected figure in the early music movement, having founded the influential ensemble Sequentia some 32 years ago.

In 1990, Bagby was approached by the director of a festival in The Netherlands about creating an evening on “Beowulf.” He’s been obsessed with it ever since and has committed to memory a large chunk of the text in Old English.

At Tanglewood, he’ll offer approximately the first third of the epic poem. A translation into modern English will be projected on a screen behind him.

“No two performances are alike,” he says. That’s a statement that lots of musicians like to make and it could actually be said to be true for every performance. But it seems to be especially the case with Bagby’s “Beowulf.”

“It’s hard to practice this piece alone, and I surprise myself in performance all the time,” says Bagby. “I find myself doing something I wasn’t expecting, and I follow it and sometimes it takes me to a very different place.”

Bagby explains that he’s driven as much by the text as by his connection to the harp. He plays a replica of an instrument that dates from the seventh century.

“The tuning of the harp is the most complicated part,” he says. “There are indications of what the historical tunings were, but there were probably hundreds and every player had his own. It’s like the five-string banjo in Appalachian music. There’s no one tuning, and to the outsider it all seems like banjo music. But to those who really know modal mountain music, there are many different flavors.”

Like a modern troubadour, Bagby offers a fresh take on the classic tale in locales across the globe.

“I identify with the character of the storyteller, who keeps repeating variations on something that’s been heard before,” he says. “It’s like favorite bedtime stories, for children who want to hear it over and over gain. There’s comfort in the cadence and in reliving the feeling of when you first heard it.”

Yet “Beowulf” is also a grand adventure with monsters and violence. It can be discomforting to modern audiences.

“We think of being good Christian, hard-working community folk,” say Bagby. “But in the tribal times, our people were trying to kill other tribes and take away their stuff. That’s gang warfare. There were drive-by shootings but with swords.”

BEOWULF
Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, Lenox Mass
July 21, 2010

“A sharp wit will be able to judge two things: words and work.”

That phrase, or something close to it, whizzed by sometime during the first hour or so of Benjamin Bagby’s “Beowulf.” The Wednesday night show in Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall wasn’t so much a concert as an act of story telling and performance art.

There were lots of words spoken and sung, intoned, growled and shouted, and all in old English. Translations appeared on a screen above. There was also the more overarching form of the work, consisting of dramatic scenes and spontaneous semblances of songs. It was often difficult to keep up with the words while also appreciating Bagby’s vivid performance.

Bagby is gifted with a beautiful baritone voice and an innate acting ability.  He went seamlessly through a variety of moods and characters. A mouthy drunk was among the most memorable.  Even if we didn’t know the language being used, the slurred speech was obvious and familiar.

Bagby sat at a piano bench and accompanied himself on a six string harp. The instrument is about two feet tall and rested on his left hip. Its sound was surprisingly limited in both volume and color. But it still did the job of accompanying and punctuating the tale.  Most of the time Bagby plucked the strings in repeating patterns. Only during Beowulf’s battle with the monster Grendel did he let go into broad strums.

The evening covered approximately the first third of the entire Beowulf sage. According to the program, that’s 1,062 lines. Every one of them seemed to appear on the electronic board above the stage. Unlike supertitles in opera, which are often succinct summaries, these felt complete. Sometimes 25 words would fill the screen at a time and then go by in a flash.  Unlike at an opera or a foreign film, the mind also had to evoke an image to flesh out the story.

At the evening’s start, it felt like a lot of tedium was ahead, but Bagby swept us along. The best moments were when the story slipped away and the sole focus was his expressive face and remarkable voice.

When it was all said and done and Bagby rose to exit the stage, it was a wonder that so much power flowed out of such a relatively small man.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

This Saturday night, pianist Pedja Muzijevic will present a program wildly varied enough to be described as mavericky.

Along with Schumann’s “Carnaval” and some little sonatas by Scarlatti, there will be transcriptions of Wager and Strauss and sampling of mid-century Americans like Henry Cowell, Morton Feldman and John Cage.

“It’s a natural combination, wouldn’t you say?” deadpans the Bosnian-born pianist who’s lived in New York since the mid-80s.

A few years ago Muzijevic made a CD of Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes” interspersed with material from the Baroque through modern eras.  Alexander Platt, director of The Maverick, invited Muzijevic to try something similar this summer.  But that Cage piece is written for the “prepared” piano – a grand piano with nuts, bolts, rubber bands and other hardware items attached onto the strings to create a rattling and ringing sound.

Muzijevic has recreated the CD in concert but having two pianos, one prepared and one standard, wasn’t feasible on the small Maverick stage.  Instead, he came up with a smorgasbord for the first half and will offer the Schumann after intermission.

While most pianists who plumb such depths of contemporary repertoire are specialists in it, Muzijevic sees it as all as part of a large continuum.

“I’m just as happy playing a Mozart concert as a Philip Glass piece,” says Muzijevic.  “I like to put things together because they’re so different. Hopefully it makes us hear each piece better and clearer.”

Among Muzijevic’s selections for Saturday, there are some historic connections to the Ulster County locale.  The program includes “Fabric” and “Floating” by the late Henry Cowell.  An enfant terrible during his youth, Cowell became famous in the 1920s for reaching inside the piano to strum and strike its strings in pieces like “The Banshee.”

Cowell did calm down as he aged and Muzijevic has chosen some relatively traditional selections from his large catalog. The composer died in 1965 after having spent his late years in the village of Shady, about four miles outside Woodstock. His wife Sidney resided there until her death in 1995.

Cowell’s daring at the piano set the stage for the work of his pupil, John Cage, whose influence as a musical visionary and artistic philosopher remains strong almost 20 years after his death.  Besides the sometimes-scorned prepared piano, Cage’s most notorious work is titled “four minutes and 33 seconds” or 4’33”.

Structured in three movements, the piece consists of silence.

It can be “performed” on any instrument, and the musician is instructed to sit still and allow the audience to listen.  Though Cage wrote a book called “Silence,” an encounter with 4’33” is anything but silent.  Instead, it reinforces his notion that all sound can be considered music.

4’33” premiered at The Maverick on August 29, 1952. The pianist was Anthony Tudor.  Rather than hearing air conditioning systems and distant traffic noises, as can happen in a “silent” concert hall, the audience heard the sounds of nature.  By bringing the piece back to The Maverick, Muzijevic is presenting an historical recreation of its premiere.

“To this day, the most avant garde figures in any category are John Cage and Merce Cunningham,” says the pianist. (Cage’s companion was the choreographer Merce Cunningham, who died July 26 last year.) “Has anyone ever come so close to that freedom of expression and wonderment and discomfort?  And is there anything more discomforting than silence.”

Maverick audiences will find out, again, on Saturday.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

GLIMMERGLASS OPERA
Cooperstown, New York

PUCCINI: TOSCA
Friday, July 9, 2010 (opening night)

Big changes are underway at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, with a new general and artistic director waiting in the wings to take over in the fall.  The internationally known stage director Francesca Zambello plans an expanded array of events for next year when the whole enterprise will become known as The Glimmerglass Festival.

Yet the 2010 summer season got underway Friday night with the focus squarely on operatic tradition — in other words, lots of fine singing in a staple of the repertoire, Puccini’s “Tosca.”

Soprano Lise Lindstrom was marvelous in the lead.  She began the second act aria “Vissi d’arte” with a hint of bleating pain in her voice before a gathering strength for an upwards soar into beauty.  There’s some throaty vibrato in her midrange while her top notes are clear and true. Her entire interpretation was always ripe with emotion and immediacy.

Tenor Adam Diegel, as the painter Cavaradossi, had a consistently strong and pleasant sound, a hearty mix of chest and head voice.  Often he seemed to link together phrases into giant, superhuman breaths.  Early in the third act he stepped out of the shadows, both physically and vocally, rallying for a stunning display in “E lucevan le stelle.”

Despite a stout physicality, baritone Lester Lynch was less sturdy as the villainous Scarpia. He was great in the first act, as a kind of high priest setting up the tragic ritual. But when he wasn’t interjecting taunts or barking orders, he paled a bit, especially in the longer solo passages. At points in the second act arguments with Tosca, his sound was almost completely covered.

Music director David Angus had the orchestra in tight form from the opening brass chords and the score ticked along with order and clarity most of the time.  The cellos were mighty sour, though, in the third act.

Donald Eastman’s set for the opening church scene positioned the Virgin Mary on stage right opposite the in-progress painting of a blond Mary Magdalene. It spoke about the opera’s balance of quiet piety and uncontrollable human urges.  For the balance of the night the icons slipped away but the basic structures stayed.  It was all moody and economical, but not obviously cheap either.

Last fall the Met got into trouble with a daring new staging of this classic. Glimmerglass seemed to know better.  After Tosca slays Scarpia, she followed tradition and put candles on either side of his corpse. For a crucifix, she yanked the chain off her neck.

MOZART: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
Saturday, July 17, 2010 (opening night)

Everyone wants a wedding to go smoothly, but a good opera needs a few bumps along the way.  Glimmerglass Opera’s new production of “The Marriage of Figaro,” which opened Saturday night, is just too polished and plain.

The director was Leon Major, whose last effort for the company was “Barber of Seville,” a similarly by-the-book production in 2006.  For all the reversals and surprises, romance and pathos packed into these Beaumarchais masterpieces, Major doesn’t seem to get much action on the stage.

Sure, there were still plenty of laughs, like when Cherubino hides out in the parlor, quaking beneath a sheet. But when the carefree boy is told he’ll be joining the army, it doesn’t seem to come as news.  There are lots of other passages, especially in the first two acts, that are more broad than immediate. The big third act arias by the count and countess — nicely sung by bass-baritone Mark Schnaible and soprano Caitlin Lynch, respectively — are of the “sit and sing” variety.

A good wedding also needs the colors of celebration but the stage picture in “Figaro” is drab.  Matthew Pachtman’s costumes were an instant bore. Nearly every performer wears a washed out variation on beige or a tiny floral print.

Set designer Donald Eastman was given a tough task, and presumably little budget, to do the sets for all four of the company’s current productions.  For “Figaro” the walls are a chestnutty wood grain into which the performers mostly disappear.  Jeff Harris’ contributions with lighting were negligible.

The fourth act is traditionally a hide and seek in the night time garden but instead we’re in the barn yard. Rather than peeking out from behind trees, the characters climb up, down and around an ugly old wagon that seems ready to collapse. The fine soprano Lyubov Petrova as Susanna sang an entire aria stretched out at an awkward position on its sloped bench.  And where did the characters find flashlights, by the way, since everything else in the production suggested the 19th century?

Patrick Carfizzi was a hearty and likeable Figaro. But like the rest of the cast, he didn’t seem to let emotions arrive into his voice until after intermission.  Too often, the quality of the singing was all the same, pleasant but not infused with much wonder or excitement, fear or anger.

The most consistent and expressive contribution of the evening came from the orchestra, conducted by music director David Angus.  He’s got them in fine shape and has a reliable hand with pacing.

HANDEL: TOLOMEO
Sunday, July 18, 2010 (opening performance)

During the first bars of Handel’s “Tolomeo,” which opened Sunday afternoon at Glimmerglass Opera, the boyish countertenor Anthony Costanzo is meditating on the currents of his life while gazing at a little fishbowl.  He sings full out to the audience with a beautiful voice ripe with emotion.

Soon a full-sized swordfish floats into the blue lighting above.  The audience’s laugher comes hesitantly but the message is clear: traditional notions of opera staging would be absent for the rest of the afternoon.

The new production marks the U.S. staged debut of “Tolomeo.” Just a few decades ago Handel’s many operas languished. The thinking was that their structures were just too far-removed from modern conventions. But Glimmerglass has contributed regularly to the composer’s revival, offering seven other Handel operas in the past 15 years.

Certainly the composer is an acquired taste in the theater.  Not that his rippling melodies are hard to like, but the constant alternation between recitative and small arias takes some getting used to.

It also calls for creative thinking.  Director Chas Rader-Shieber and the rest of the production team for “Tolomeo” let their imaginations run freely.  There’s lots of whimsy, along with one or two hair-brained ideas. Happily, it’s a long way from the company’s disastrous “L’Orfeo,” which still leaves a bad taste in the mouth after three years.

This is one modern staging that smartly adheres to images and comic notions in the libretto, rather than suggesting its own. Best of all, the talented young cast isn’t hampered from focusing on singing, which they do almost uniformly well.  They keep rather busy, though, managing crazy props and sporting outlandish costumes by Andrea Hood.

Mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne (last year’s lead in “La Cenerentola”) has a wig that looks like it’s made of red and black kitchen scrubbies. In an aria about morning doves, she lifts a bird off the dinner table and serenades it.

There’s also an aviary theme around Seleuce, played by the fair soprano Joelle Harvey. When she sings about captive love, a large birdcage lowers around her head.

The strapping baritone Steven LaBrie, a member of Glimmerglass’ young artist program, wears a maroon pimp suit with fur lapels.

A regular presence are three hunchbacked supernumeraries in powdered wigs who move large props at geriatric speed.  Sometimes they distract from a nice aria.

Robert Wierzel’s lighting bathes everything in an elegant glow and conductor Christian Curnyn’s orchestra is crisp and efficient.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Photos courtesy Glimmerglass Opera.

For 35 years, Peter Haley has been the Pied Piper of opera in the Capital Region.  As founder of the 400-member Siena Opera Club, he teaches classes on the art form, leads dozens of bus trips every year to performances across the east coast, and organizes European tours.

Preparing for it all means long days immersed in music and logistical details. And Haley doesn’t even get to take the summers off.

That’s because the local opera season is concentrated during the months of July and August.  At the head of the pack is the Lake George Opera at Saratoga, which Haley and his crew call “the home team.” The company launches its 48th season tonight with a new production of “Carmen” and continues on Friday with Donizetti’s “Viva La Mama.” Meanwhile in Cooperstown Glimmerglass Opera’s opening weekend features Puccini’s “Tosca” on Friday and Copland’s “The Tenderland” on Saturday.

Still more opera is ahead at Bard College, Tanglewood, the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy and Hubbard Hall in Cambridge and the Seagle Colony on Schroon Lake.

The Siena Opera Club will show up in force for most everything.

“They’re enthusiastic and knowledgeable opera-goers,” says Curtis Tucker, artistic director of the Lake George Opera.  “Peter Haley’s leadership of the organization has been extraordinary. He has made the Siena Opera Club an important group, serving individuals, opera companies near and far, and the art form that we love.”

“Our mission it to put people in front of live opera,” says Haley, 70.

That’s also an apt description of Haley’s life purpose.  He’s had sundry other musical pursuits, including 54 years as a church organist, starting in his teens and continuing at various parishes in the region. But opera’s been his primary focus since at least 1975 when he was recruited to teach an appreciation course in the tiny music department at Siena College in Loudonville.

Haley recalls that when he became a full time faculty member there in 1984, “I was the music department, teaching an intro class, music history and introduction to opera.”  He retired five years ago but continues a pace with the club.

According to Haley, the class in opera was surprisingly popular with undergrads, partly since it met just one night a week but was worth three credits. But it also drew a healthy contingent of adult students from the community.  In 1980, the regulars prevailed on Haley to continue offering monthly seminars and to expand the range of excursions.  Bus rides to the Metropolitan Opera have been happening ever since, sometimes a dozen times a season.

“If you live in the Albany area and are a die hard opera fan, it’s the best deal going,” says Deborah Onslow, former president and general manager of WMHT, who’s been a member for about four years. “It allows me to go to New York and not have to spend the night. Sometimes those operas are so long that there’s no hope of catching the late train back.”

For Met performances, members are dropped off at Lincoln Center at 4 p.m., allowing time for a bit of shopping or site seeing as well as dinner before the 8 p.m. curtain.  After the show, they pile into the buses and arrive back at Siena by 1 or 2 a.m.

Membership in the Siena Opera Club is $25 a year for individuals, $40 for families.  Members can pick and chose which performances they’ll attend.  Met tickets, including transportation, are around $150. The advance seminars are free.

“My only regret is that I didn’t learn about it when it first started,” says Roland Hummel of Brunswick.  “I subscribed to the Met for 20 years and took the train. But it’s best to be with other people interested in opera.”

During his 15 years of membership, Hummel has gone on at least a dozen European tours with the club and is looking forward to trip to Spain in the fall.  Though he’s 91 years old, Hummel is not the oldest active member. That distinction goes to John Cetner, age 102.

“It’s the pure pleasure of listening to good music,” says Cetner, who still attends several performances each year. “And Peter is a gem who uses plane language to describe the plots and singers.”

While the membership tilts toward the grey-haired set, vocal students from local high schools and colleges are regularly taken along to performances for free.  Three years ago a partnership was formed with the Opera Club at Lisha Kill Middle School. It consists of students who give up recess to watch opera on DVD and sometimes tag along on the opera club outings.

“Watching the discussions about opera on the bus is my favorite part,” says Lisha Kill band instructor Karen MacWatters. “Suddenly there’s a bunch of crazy noisy kids and the seniors just light right up.”

Quietly presiding over it all is the benevolent Peter Haley.  Also a former critic for the Times Union, Haley is as discerning and experienced a listener as you’ll find, having seen “La Traviata” more than 50 times. But he mostly keeps his opinions to himself.

“I try to respect where my people are and if they’ve had a great time and I haven’t, why bother to say anything,” he explains.  “Though to my friends I’ll bitch up a storm about a bad performance and just let the blood run.”

Without a hint of condescension, Haley continues: “At midnight after we’ve been through an opera and I’m checking people onto the bus, someone will say ‘Wasn’t that wonderful?’ And I’ll just smile.  My pleasure is making pleasure for other people.”

Originally appeared in Times Union.

Photos: Cindy Schultz, Times Union

The performers have already recorded the work and Eighth Blackbird will perform it soon with the eight other orchestras that participated in the commission, including the Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toronto symphonies.

Higdon and Spano in rehearsal

“On a Wire begins with the six musicians gathered around the open-lidded piano, most of them ‘bowing’ the interior strings with horsehair to eerie, almost electronic-music effect. As the concerto evolves into a full-blown orchestral work, the musicians have their own virtuosic solo moments, none alike in temperament, some dense and excited, others like philosophical soliloquies.”  – David Patrick Sterns in lengthy and thoughtful story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“The concerto is pure Higdon, with jaunty rhythms that evoke Copland’s Americana at the beginning and end, contrasted in the middle by a tender, fragrant lyricism. Marimba flutters sounded like a breeze passing through a bamboo forest.  Many of Higdon’s fans are waiting for her to cross an artistic threshold and turn out a masterpiece. With emotions kept in reserve, ‘On a Wire’ isn’t there yet.” – Pierre Ruhe, Access Atlanta, reviewing the concert which also included a premiere by Michael Gandolfi.

Eighth Blackbird

BY THE WAY: Since this posting went up, representatives of Eight Blackbird emailed to say hey and inform that two of its members – violinist Matt Albert and clarinetist Michael J. MacCaferri – just happen to be gay.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Higdon Wins Pulitzer Prize for Violin Concerto (April 2010)

Jennifer Higdon Comes Out on Top (August 2009)

He’s the principal cellist in the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, but Jeffrey Krieger is widely known in new music circles as an electric cellist.

For some 20 years now he’s played the electrified instrument and collaborated extensively with a wide range of composers in the creation of multimedia performance works involving computer and videos.

A 1993 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible extensive touring in the USA, and in 1996 he received the State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts Artist Fellowship for work in multi-media.

_______________________________________________________________

Where did you grow up and has that affected your sensibilities as a musician?
I grew up in Joliet, Illinois and came from a very middle class, somewhat Catholic, blue-collar background. Joliet is known for Stateville, the State Penitentiary. In fact, one of my uncles was an assistant warden. I remember as a kid going to family picnics on the grounds just outside the prison walls. Dad worked as a foreman at Reynolds Aluminum just outside of Chicago and my mother stayed home with five kids.

On my 9th birthday I was presented with a $9.99 ukulele from Mr. Zee’s Music Shop and I loved to learn how to play it on my own. Growing up I listened to a lot of radio, hearing music mostly out of speakers and never having the opportunity to attend live classical music concerts until much later.

Dad used to call from the living room for me to come watch the cellist, Charlotte Harris on the TV each time she would appear (which was frequently) in her full length red gown and 50’s hairdo smiling lovingly into the camera while performing The Swan on the Lawrence Welk Show. This was also the era when electronic organs became popular and the housewives in the neighborhood bought them to occupy their leisure time. You could hear the sound of Leslie speakers from across the street wafting in the hot summer breeze.

At the same time as learning to play the cello I also played electric guitar with kids in neighborhood bands and acoustic guitar at Sunday church services. So traditional classical music did not play as influential a role in my formation as a musician until much later.

What are you working on these days?
I recently premiered “Portrait of Jeffrey” by Pauline Oliveros, a mandala piece realized for electric cello and computer. Pauline created the score after some specific questions were answered about my birth date, place, time, etc. I constructed an interactive computer program in MAX/MSP software which allows the performer to click on various parts of the mandala image ­– Nature, Birth, Who Am I?, Quotation, Dream, Memory, Theater, and Signature. This in turn performs tasks like setting up the software that processes the sound and supplies the score for each section of the piece. The capabilities of the instrument are extended through the software. For example, a string can be used as a kind of slide controller to modulate the speed of a sound file. My goal was to go beyond the traditional expectations of the cello using the capabilities of technology.

Currently, I am experimenting with a multi-channel playback system. I am contemplating rewiring the output of the instrument so there are 4 separate channels, one for each string. This will allow the performance to become more ‘sculptural’.

Do you like to collaborate or be the boss?
I am definitely hands-on when it comes to collaboration because of the importance in sharing what I have learned about the electric cello, as well as at the same time leaving plenty of room for experimentation. After 20 years with the electric cello there is a wealth of knowledge to share. It is also a necessity to be an equal partner because of the interactive computer programs I create specifically for each project. The computer plays an important role in my performances. The more I help the direction of a project the more interesting the result.

Have you ever experienced discrimination in the music business because of your sexuality?
Not that I am aware.

Are you single or coupled?
I am single.

Are most of your friends from the music world or not?
Most of my close friends are musicians, composers and artists.  I especially like the later two because they are creative people who are outside the classical musician circle I work in as principal cellist of the Hartford Symphony, and I just admire their art so much. Perhaps because of my work on the electric cello I have come to appreciate much more the people who are the creators. I collect contemporary art so there is nothing more exciting than visiting an artist’s studio to see and hear about their current work, even more than visiting a gallery or museum. But I cherish all artistic friendships for the creative energy and inspiration.

Is there a relationship between your sexuality and your creativity?
Yes, I am very creative in both areas…….

How much do you travel for your work? Do you find it stimulating or a hassle?
I travel just enough for performances that it has not become boring or tedious. What helps to keep it interesting are the challenges of adapting a performance to a particular venue and the wide range of acoustical characteristics one may encounter. The electric cello and computer are very adaptable when it comes to these challenges.

An example of an ideal performance scenario took place recently at Radford University’s new state-of-the-art, Covington Recital Hall where my acoustical needs were accommodated on the spot by a technician who expanded and contracted the walls and ceiling with a control module. It is normal to be prepared to make adjustments for the acoustics in the computer software, but the technician was able to adjust the hall to the ideal acoustics. One may know ahead of time what sound system will be available for playback but the actual acoustics from venue to venue can be much more unpredictable.

I also use an untraditional configuration for placement of the speakers. Instead of the speakers out front with a monitor for the performer and house levels controlled by a sound engineer, I prefer to monitor volume levels, flanked by the speakers, which are turned slightly inward. This allows me to hear closer to what the audience is experiencing and to make constant adjustments in my playing. Each work is unique when it comes to its sound requirements and there is never enough time to teach a sound engineer these subtleties.

Otherwise, I like meeting people and everything that goes along with new travel experiences like food, climate, etc., especially in far away places. Chaotic experiences like dodging animals and motorcyclists while being chauffeured through tiny villages on dirt roads from Mumbai, India to a venue several hours away, wondering if we will ever arrive in time for the start of the concert (we didn’t), which may also include spontaneous power outages, can be very entertaining. It makes the actual performing of the concert a piece of cake.

Arenas died of AIDS in 1990 at age 47 and the epidemic still seems potent material for musical exploration.  Just two years ago the Fort Worth Opera mounted the operatic version of “Angels in America.”   But AIDS is almost a minor topic in the new three hour-long work.  Freedom — artistic and sexual — is the more dominate theme.

From his bed Arenas pleads for his two muses, played by sopranos in glittery ball gowns and beehive hairdos, to take him back to his youth.  Soon he’s cavorting on the beaches of Cuba and we follow his entanglement in revolutionary politics, pursuit of love and companionship, and achievement of international fame with the overseas publication of his visionary writing.

The young baritone Wes Mason played Arenas with remarkable vocal stamina and  physical dexterity to give a vivid portrait of the character’s playful creativity and steely constitution.  The singing quality of the mostly young supporting cast, though, was very uneven.   Bass-baritone Seth Mease Carico played the revolutionary officer Victor with terrific strength and clarity and Jesus Garcia, as a fellow writer, was suitable though a bit anonymous.  Tenor Jonathan Blalock, as one of Arenas’s lovers, sang with a reedy, disembodied voice and soprano Janice Hall’s one scene as the mother was just unpleasant.   A hearty chorus of about 30 was dispatched as a militant band in the first half and disco revelers near the end.

The Manhattan and Cuban locales were evoked by projections on various scrims, which after a while gave the production a weightless, floating quality.  Riccardo Hernandez was credited with scenic design and Peter Nigrini with projections.  Maybe they intended their imagery to foreshadow Arenas’ troubled life, but the beach scenes always had a heavily clouded sky and overly bluish cast.   The stage of Bass Hall also just felt too big for the piece, with many performers exiting with long dashes into the wings.  The two all male dance numbers by choreographer John de los Santos were acrobatic, choppy, and rigid, while the narrative and Martin’s lush scoring called for sensuality and seduction.

There’s plenty of Latin dance rhythms throughout and overall the opera’s pacing is quick with lots of short scenes that keep things moving. Martin’s orchestration is traditional but sometimes daringly light and understated.  Some pivotal choruses and ensembles were performed a capella.

The composer made his own libretto with assistance from Dolores M. Koch, who was a translator of Arenas’ writings.  Too often they have the characters announcing their feelings rather then trusting the music to communicate the emotions.  But in a rare accomplishment, almost every word is intelligible — a testament to both the singers and Martin’s skill at setting text.  The supertitles, by the way, provided the English lyrics as well as a Spanish translation.

A beautiful tune comes in the first act when Arenas and a lover sing, “Oh, our unhappy island, when will your troubles be done?”  Near the end of the show, the emotional and political themes come together in the line: “My death notice came not from a tyrant but from my lovers.”

The opera itself seems bolder in its handling of gay content than does the production by director David Gately.  When Arenas applies for sanctuary in the U.S., he’s harshly questioned about his sexuality — even asked by an official if he’s a top or a bottom and ordered to swish about to prove he’s a fag.  (As if his hip huggers and loud flowered shirt weren’t enough.) It was an awkward and painful moment to watch but not unbelievable either.

So why did the Fort Worth audience laugh?  There was nothing particularly campy or clownish in Mason’s movement and his face communicated shame.  Giving the audience the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was a collective discomfort that came out as a chuckle.

Such powerful material in the libretto and score only highlighted the contrast to the staging, which played it safe with gay sensuality.  There were only two male-to-male kisses in the entire production. Both were pecks on Arena’s forehead, more motherly than passionate. And then there were those stiff dance numbers, with the men knocking against each other almost like football players.

The 86-year old Philip Spooner spoke to a committee of the state legislature in Maine on April 22, 2009:

Here’s Dunphy’s musical setting “What Do You Think I Fought For At Omaha Beach?” performed by the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers on May 30, 2010, at Blessed Sacrament Church in Kansas City, KS:

The piece received the first Simon Carrington Chamber Singers Composition Award, selected from a pool of over 100 submissions, from over 70 composers, hailing from 10 different countries.  In addition to having the piece premiered by the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, Dunphy also received a cash prize.

Dunphy, by the way, is straight (married to a man, according to her Facebook page).  A graduate of West Chester University, she studied there with Robert Maggio.