shoobeee doobeee doo

heya! sorry for my complete disappearance on this project. i've been busy/lazy/whatever but i'm pumped to get back into it. since there is nothing here so far, i thought i would summarize what has been discussed so far over e-mail, with some follow up comments and some new threads for discussion:

Structure (scenes):
1 - Spectacle
2 - Song
3 - Diction
4 - Thought
5 - Character
6 - Plot

i'm still a little unclear about what this means. 6 scenes, each loosely based the concept listed? if this is the case, i like the idea of each scene being a separate musical work, which are then performed together, with little or no pause in between, like a multi-movement classical piece. and what about adding a 7th (mostly because I like 7's). it could be something seemingly "lighter" to contrast the rest of it, like "Dance" or "Comedy" or "Interlude" or a combination like "Comedic Dance Interlude". of course it wouldn't have to actually be light to be funny. twisted humor.

Elements:
- A woman is thrown (x3)
- She is a hero/villain/hero and other options
- Also: turned to stone
- She elicits pity and fear
- There is a snake baby in a box (don't look)
- A god would like to rape (marry?) her sister (as a swan?)
- There may be a chorus, with interludes, a reversal, a scene of suffering, and a recognition that produces love/hate
- Maybe elements of symphonic form?

i am sort of at a loss of how to contribute to this list... maybe i will be inspired with ideas once i have a better grasp of the structure/scenes. or maybe i will content to focus mainly on the musical side of this.

Sources:
"Poetics" by Aristotle - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html

i admit i didn't read all of this. can you summarize what you are hoping to draw from this?

Aglaulus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglaulus,_daughter_of_Cecrops or http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/A/Agraulos.html

musical ideas:

-baroque styling: crisp, almost minimal. counterpoint and fugues. baroque dance forms.

-pushing limits and extremes, ala Boredoms

-modifying instruments

-instrumentalists providing vocals

more discussion points:

-in order to start to write music, it would be helpful to me to have a sense of who will be performing it, which takes us right into logistics. we mentioned Rhymes With Opera to possibly do it in Baltimore, and your group to do it in Denver. so we could either determine what sorts of voicings and instrumentations would work for both groups, or we could write it vaguely and leave the specific instrumentation open for the performers to interpret with whatever personnel and equipment is available. in any case, some sort of basic framework would be helpful. i like the idea of keeping it minimal, with 3-4 vocalists, 3-4 instrumentalists, and some overlap. my initial thoughts on ideal instrumentation would include cello (maybe 2), trumpet, piano, and percussion.

-are you interested in bringing more people into this discussion/blog or keeping it simple with the two of us? i could go either way.

-i'm itching to get moving on some musical ideas, so once a few of these things get more clarification, i will get too and send along ideas!

this is pity and fear

An opera based somehow on Aristotle's elements of tragedy, perhaps, and or the story(s) of Aglaulos maybe. And other things also. We'll see how far we can push it, and how much burbon it will take.