Edward Ficklin

When embarking on something large, we're often given that sage, if cliche, advice. Having recently laid down on paper, finally, the first few lines a new libretto destined to be a grand opera, I find that I need to remind myself of this. Indeed, large endeavors always require a large perspective.

What kind of stage directions should go into a libretto? I've always tended toward a "less-is-more" approach, leaving wide latitude for directors and performers. Still, you have to give them something to hang their hats on, as it were, while still letting them make the work their own.

I read recently in Center for Contemporary Opera's Opera Today (Fall 2009) an interview with J. D. McClatchy, author of many a libretto. He was asked the question of how he decides what subjects can become libretti, or as the interviewer put it, "stage-worthy." His response:

My own experience—of both watching and making operas over the years—tells me that melodrama works best. Comedy is rarely funny, and its impulses are handicapped by the slowness of music; tragedy that begins with too abstract or merely psychological a premise grows wispy and tedious. But melodrama offers the possibilities of variety, outsized characters, and a plot that is both complicated and resolved.

In technology circles, the "Cloud" is the way things are done now. I won't bore you with technical details about what is, and is not, the Cloud (you can find that at Wikipedia). Suffice it to say that the cloud is about doing things on the web that you used to do on your desktop. For everyday technology needs, the Cloud is the way to go. Don't believe such things can impact your compositional process? Perhaps, perhaps not. Let me give you an example.