DIDO IS DEAD - A Chamber Opera by Rhiannon Randle (c) 2015 Taking one of opera's most renowned stories, Dido Is Dead turns the myth of Dido and Aeneas inside-out. Told through the eyes of the maddened heroine, Dido attempts to break free from the figures from her past that have torn apart her life, and fights her inner demons - portrayed by male and female choruses - in order to try and begin her life again, rather than succumb to her famed suicide. In the wake of my first chamber opera, Temptations (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzSyHVkZVvc, with its grand moralistic nature and quasi-symphonic compositional styles, I next wanted to write a much more personal and emotionally raw opera. I became intrigued with the dramatic concept of the monologue, and turned my attention to an opera exploring the multifaceted nature of a single character. But surely a monologue, in its most basic sense, is a moment in which the protagonist can reflect upon their situation and break the fourth wall between stage and audience, thus drawing the audience deeper into the personal nature of the protagonist’s situation. So, I took on the challenge, and researched compositional techniques used in other ‘monologue operas’. Two vocal dramatic works based on monologue that have left a big impression on me were Britten’s cantata Phaedra and Poulenc’s La Vox Humaine, both of which convey the central drama entirely through the eyes, lips and heart of the protagonist, whether it be a morally-stricken Greek heroine or a despairing woman on the phone to her lover. I was particularly drawn to the way in which both Britten and Poulenc overtly portray raw emotion, while creating a sense of poise and mystique around the protagonist that leaves the character, and her suffering, open to interpretation long after the music has faded out. With overt emotion in mind, I turned to the story of Dido, Queen of Carthage. The story of Dido’s madness has a particular personal resonance for me. With a strong background in Classical Literature, the Aeneid has been a part of my life for many years, and I was always drawn towards the way that Virgil portrays Dido in Book IV of the Aeneid; how, in an epic poem primarily concerning the bold, Augustan hero Aeneas who was destined to found Rome, the focus in Book IV zones in to the personal tragedy of the abandoned woman, who undergoes psychological stress to the point where she loses herself entirely. The poignant last line of the book, “in ventos vita recessit” (as Robert Fagles puts it, “her life dissolved into the winds”) epitomises her suffering in vain. But Virgil is also perhaps subtlety touching on the idea that she was nothing in the first place. Without her regal status, her father’s crown, and her husband Sychaeus, Dido is reduced to something that can only exist out of the Classical society: a woman without a man, name or household is a woman without an identity. When Adam Cigman-Mark brought the theme of self-identification as a central point of the libretto, it made perfect sense to me. The libretto dissolves and demolishes the myth, while simultaneously reconsidering a central Virgilian theme - Dido’s identity. Just as Virgil’s Aeneas can be seen as a symbol of personal determination, for me, Dido is a symbol for our own struggles with our own sense of false grandeur and our true sense of self. Perhaps she falls not because of heartbreak, but because she gives away what defines her. My Dido seeks to redefine herself outside of her mythological bonds, forgetting the trauma that has become inextricably tied up with how we identify her. The musical styles incorporated in my opera span the brash and almost comic mockery of the Male Chorus, coloured with cor anglais and bassoon flourishes inspired by the court scene of Peter Grimes, to the private and ethereal Female Chorus quasi-religious choral style inspired by Tallis, Britten, and Julian Anderson which consists of quasi-diatonic polyphony and is created around chromatic pivot-points. My main musical challenge was framing Dido’s almost schizophrenic ‘flight of ideas’ into a coherent musical whole. I did this through thorough use of motives, which are heard explicitly as melody and harmony, and hidden throughout the work with rhythmic and textural variations. My other musical influences involve the use of offstage choruses in Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, combined with orchestral textures and colours inspired by Ligeti and Birtwistle. My orchestration is characterized often by the heavy use of unusual and at times ‘tribal’-sounding percussion, including South American surdo (calf-skin) drum, Lion’s Roar drum and bongos paired with distorted electric guitar. These hard-hitting and ‘base’ timbres are juxtaposed with the other-wordly resonances created by the Tibetan Singing Bowl, wine glasses and bowed crotales, emphasizing the contrasting nature of Dido’s state of mind.

• published: 15 Aug 2015
• views: 347