SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE
Music by Curtis K. Hughes libretto by Curtis K. Hughes, adapted from the transcribed text of the 2008 Vice Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden
Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are used as a point of departure for a musical and dramatic exploration of the tragic and comic aspects of both characters.
Composer: Curtis K. Hughes
Libretto: Curtis K. Hughes, adapted from transcribed text of the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin
Duration: 75min
Instrumentation: sop, 2 mezzo, bari, b.cl, vc, sax, perc
Director: Nathan Troup
Premiere: 2009
Status: Inactive
PRESS
“The audience response was rapturous…. this was great music.” THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
HISTORY
September 19, 2009: World Premiere performances by Guerilla Opera in The Zack Box at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Directed by Nathan Troup, and scenic design by Julia Noulin-Merat.
ABOUT THE OPERA
Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are used as a point of departure for a musical and dramatic exploration of the tragic and comic aspects of both characters. Yet, the opera isn’t about Palin and Biden as real individuals so much as it is about their public identities as constructed in the imagination of American citizens. Similarly, the depiction of the debate itself isn’t so much an attempt to recreate what actually transpired as it is an evocation of the subjective experience of watching the debate, one in which a viewer’s attention sometime wanders, perhaps certain ideas and utterances stand out while others recede, and time itself doesn’t necessarily progress in a straightforward manner.
The words that are sung during the debate (even-numbered scenes), however, are “real” in that they are derived entirely from the public record. During the other scenes (all odd-numbered scenes), those that are interspersed with the recurrent glimpses of the debate, I took some considerable liberties with assembling the libretto. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the words, with the notable exception of most of Act 1, Scene 3, come from the public record, though generally culled from a wide variety of sources.
In composing the music I was also inescapably aware that politicians themselves are musicians of a sort. Nuances of tempo, phrasing and pitch language are so integral to the public verbal performances of politicians that in many places I chose to literally incorporate them into the music of the opera. Indeed, throughout Act 1, Scene 2, and for shorter stretches in other portions of the opera, you’ll be hearing the actual ‘melodies’ of the debate, rendered almost precisely as they were spoken, but in a musical context. The instrumental music sometimes assists in providing dramatic weight to Biden’s and Palin’s words, while at other times it diverges, or even belittles the candidates. Each of you in the audience might have your own interpretation of the drama, but one certainty is that both Palin and Biden are each the heroes of their own respective stories in this ‘light tragedy.’
ABOUT THE COMPOSER
Described as "fiery" by the New York Times and "colorfully scored" by the Boston Globe, the music of CURTIS K. HUGHES is characterized by its rhythmic restlessness, its harmonic adventurousness and its often volatile mix of diverse stylistic elements and political subtexts. He has written for Tony Arnold, New Gallery Concert Series, Transient Canvas, Boston Musica Viva, and Guerilla Opera with performances across the world from Vermont's Yellow Barn to Bulgaria's Here/Now New Music Festival. A professor of composition at the Boston Conservatory since 2008, Curtis was a fellow at Tanglewood, and has served as composer-in-residence for Collage New Music and the Radius Ensemble. His music can be heard on the Albany, GM, New Focus, and Cauchemar labels.
