Opera Diary: The Friendly Enemy
By Gary A. Edwards © 2007
I have always wanted to write an opera. I love opera just because it combines music, art, drama and sometimes dance. I was introduced to opera as a teenager by a gentleman who mowed our lawns. He would play The Barber of Seville or Tosca on his 78-rpm records and explain the opera to me. At Indiana University my main activity was playing in the orchestra for several operas as I pursued my degree in music education.
I have written a complete musical comedy and a children’s musical as well as several books, dozens of articles and hundreds of musical works. The only thing that prevented me from composing an opera was motivation. The likelihood of making a living writing opera is minimal. Getting an opera produced is a long shot.
I had offered to write an original opera for an opera promotion group but was denied. It seems that people would rather listen to music by dead European composers than by live Americans. If that had been the case in the past, there would never have been any new operas produced. I believe that opera, if introduced properly to American audiences, can achieve mass popularity. After all, this is what happened throughout the musical history of Europe.
For me composing is hard; it’s almost like giving birth. There is a long gestation period that builds up to a time of intense activity. It is physically painful to sit in a chair at a computer screen for hours until you become aware of your stiffness, hunger, or other physical needs. You lose sleep, waking up in the middle of the night with just one more theme or thought.
To me, an important factor in writing an opera is that a composer must live and experience life at its fullest to achieve his maximum potential as a composer. My experiences as a social worker have introduced me to all types of persons and dysfunctions. So, I can say that to write a melody now takes me about 15 minutes of real time and 66 years of virtual time.
Once my musical baby is born I fight against my tendency to lose interest in the project and move on. Writing is the easy part. The hardest part of composing is marketing your music and getting it produced.
Fortunately, while writing I have a supportive wife who takes good care of me so I don’t have to worry about too many mundane activities. I definitely believe that spouses deserve half of the credit for a composer’s works.
The idea for my new opera, The Friendly Enemy occurred by evolution. I met a new couple at church who spoke with an accent. I discovered they had been born in Rumania and that the gentleman had served on the side of the Germans during the war. I believed there was a story here. I read the self-published book by the wife, Barbara Weber, titled Fleeing to The Friendly Enemy. I interviewed husband Mike Weber and expanded the story to include his part in World War II. I created dialogue for the story and wrote a long play with too many characters. The play would probably be more of a basis for a screenplay.
In any event, a friend suggested I rewrite the play with music. She then introduced me to a drama professor, Hershell Norwood, a PhD-in-drama candidate, who agreed to produce the resulting musical work. He made some suggestions about changing the order, combining scenes, condensing and being less literal to convey the events. I had to condense the sung dialogue into fewer characters to meet the practical demands of the stage. I introduced a few events such as a seduction scene to add interest to the opera, but the basic story is true. I also believe that melody comes first. To me, the job of a composer is to write beautiful melodies that an audience will hum as they leave the theater.
The first part of The Friendly Enemy opera is about childhood, growing up, courtship, love and marriage, so the music tends to be more light and carefree. Act II and Act III deal with tragic events including combat and fleeing from an invader (The Soviet Union). The music tends to be darker and more tragic, similar in style to Evita or Les Miserables.
While writing the opera I led a normal life with the usual aches pains, sickness. occasional dates with my wife, going to movies and concerts, reading books, walking the dogs, and so forth, probably much as Mozart or other operatic composers have done throughout history.
I took some time off from composing to take my wife and granddaughter to Barcelona and Italy this past summer. In the meantime, I was busy dreaming up different melodies. I would write them down on my computer giving them names like “slow romantic theme”, “Hungarian style Military Music”, “Romantic duet”, etc.
After the trip, I started putting music and lyrics together. Because I already had several melodies written, the work went very fast. I am also a fast worker in any event when it comes to writing original memorable melodies. I set a schedule of writing one major piece of music a week and actually wrote several themes with lyrics each week, and I stayed ahead of schedule. I started seriously writing the music in July 2007. I set deadlines, expecting to have a draft finished by the first of 2008, and produce a preview or a reading without staging or costumes by March of 2008 and a first production by July 2008. I actually finished writing the vocal/piano score before December, 2007. The vocal/piano part came to 247 pages and I timed this work at 2 hours and 15 minutes. I assumed I would have to make some cuts because I also needed to compose an overture and some transition music.
Here’s the process for my composing. Some of the themes came to me in a half-awake state in the middle of the night or early in the morning. I have learned to be open to these melodies and instantly get up and write them down before I lose them. I have found if I can’t come up with a melody, I forget about the piece for a day or two and the appropriate melody comes into my brain when I need one. The other way I write is by sitting down at the keyboard, figuring out what type of melody I want and then put down one melody note at a time, going higher or lower or staying on the same note for what feels like an appropriate duration. Another technique for composing is what I call composing by mistake. I set out to write one line and I put down the wrong note, then decide, well, maybe that was meant to be, and continue on in that different direction. Composing is basically the gift of coming up with memorable melodies and making rapid decisions. You can’t muse over each note very long or you would take forever to write an eight bar melody. I’ve learned to trust my first instincts and not second-guess my inspiration.
My typical day during a creative stretch is to get up at 5 or 6 a.m. I would cut an excerpt from the play to set to music. I would divide sections of the text into lines and stanzas. I would then write a new melody to fit the text or select music from a previously composed original melody. I would rewrite my text from the excerpt to fit the music or vice-versa. I would create a piano/voice arrangement.
I then meet with the Director/Producer, choreographer, rehearsal pianist and I make changes and cuts. Then, I select the final music and orchestrate it for full pit orchestra. During the creative process I’d take frequent breaks, playing solitaire on the computer or going for a walk to get a break, clear up my brain and be inspired by thoughts about where to proceed or make changes. I generally would take a nap every afternoon, and sometimes write music at night while my wife is busy doing her thing.
A formal music education helps to know technical details about many different instruments and voices. The composer’s brain improves with use and exercise. The more you compose, the easier it gets and the better melodies you create. You have to use this gift or lose it.
The Friendly Enemy was scheduled for production March 3rd through the 7th 2008 at the Spokane Community College, Laird Auditorium.
Copyright © 2007 by Gary A. Edwards. All rights reserved. 208 699-0848
Edwards Publishing Co. (ASCAP) PO Box 3528 Coeur d’Alene ID 83816-2520
(208) 699-0848 gedward@roadrunner.com www.edwardsmusicpublishing.com
