The Composer & Librettist

Notes from the Composer DAVID BISHOP

My work as a composer came about because of my involvement in theater and my wish to have a voice and an active role in theater. When I graduated from college I didn't consider myself a composer — I was a pianist and music director. When I moved to New York in 1974, besides conducting opera and musical theater, I became involved with various theater groups working in what was at the time experimental theater. I was fascinated by dramatic structure and by live theater, and this fascination eventually became the dominant concern of my creative life.

I could involve myself in this creative process by composing music for plays, oftentimes performing it myself, principally in off-off Broadway theaters, with little or no budget, performing in small out-of-the-way spaces around New York. My writing frequently featured vocal music, whether songs or vocal underscores. This led me to write more musical theater works, with the creation of a series of musicals. In forming my compositional voice I first followed my instincts. Then I started hoping my work would fall into a kind of Broadway "show tune" category. But I realized that, left to my own inclinations, the work I was creating didn't fit easily into that category. Although I write tonally, and frequently in straightforward structures, the result is apt to sound more like Ralph Vaughn Williams than Jule Styne, albeit with an American twist.

For many years I still didn't think of myself as a composer, but as a musician who knew a lot about theater and wrote for it. But in the last few years I have committed myself to composition, and to a style I am comfortable with — accessible but not simple minded, serving a structural dramatic moment. When I was offered the opportunity to write this opera, it came at a moment when I was looking for a project that would help me bring these elements together and help me to make a giant leap forward both in commitment and skill. This opera represents the opportunity to take the various skills I have employed in smaller scale endeavors and fuse them into a large and complex undertaking.

Salt of the Earth was remarkable for, among other things, its sensitivity to issues of racial discrimination and women's rights, and was very forward looking for 1954. These issues still have great impact, but the challenge is to make sure the impact is dramatic rather than didactic. The music, as always in opera, has the responsibility of evoking the psychology of the action. The flag-waving will follow, with little difficulty.

David Bishop is a free-lance composer and conductor currently residing in New York City.

Notes from the Librettist CARLOS MORTON

When Kathy McElroy called me 3-4 years ago to ask if I was interested in writing the libretto for an opera based on the movie Salt of the Earth I was skeptical. First of all, I didn't know if I could write lyrics for opera (even though I had written lyrics for my own plays). Secondly, as I watched the movie again it had the feel of a documentary or something akin to social realism or agit-prop. I played devil's advocate and asked Karlos Moser if this was "really the stuff of opera?" I also remember saying, tongue in cheek, "how can it be opera when no one dies!"

But there are different ways of dying. People can be killed spiritually, a little at time. You can destroy an entire race of people that way, over the centuries. What finally clinched the deal for me was the subject matter. I knew from my personal experience living in the Southwest that Mexican American miners of the 1950's were subjected to a defacto American style apartheid that separated the races and oppressed them. Thematically, I knew I could paint the landscape with true colors.

What worried me were the dramaturgical problems. To my knowledge, this is the only opera derived from a film. And there are also no operas that speak to the Chicano experience. Could I find the right act break between Acts I and II? What characters would I have to cut or enhance? Most importantly, which of the story lines were the most compelling? Kathy argued for the political story being the "thing with which we'll catch the conscience of the King," while others said that opera was about emotions and strong relationships between people.

Ultimately we chose to tell the story of Esperanza, a woman who has known hardship all her life. We see how she and Ramon learn to respect each other. Then together they go about bettering their lives and their children's lives. Behind that is the struggle between the miners and owners.

This then, is Esperanza. It's a blend of activism with the emotional. I always like to quote Horace when asked the purpose of writing: "To entertain as well as educate."

Carlos Morton is Director of Center for Chicano Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara