[A background article, written in 2001, to be published in the program
brochure of the San Francisco Opera for a premiere in 2005.]

Kelly-Marie Murphy is one of my favorite contemporary composers, a young
woman with an impressive record of accessible and memorable chamber music,
and a few strong orchestral pieces.  What I hear in her music is solid
technique, a simple, unpretentious way of speaking in tonal but eminently
contemporary phrases, which are connected seamlessly, taking the listener
on voyage now stormy, now calm, but always prosperous - and Mendelssohnian
in other ways, although with a touch of the Canadian idiom.

When I met her at Ottawa's Strings of the Future Festival a couple of years
ago, I asked her - as I ask every composer I meet - if she is interested in
writing an opera.

The answer was no a polite "no" then, but apparently, her move from
Virginia to Halifax (and the region's worst winter in 40 years) warmed
her to the idea, according to a message she sent recently:

"I'm toying ever so gently with the notion of writing an opera over the
next four or five years.  I'm particularly interested in finding out what
stories have been done in the last little while -- just to make sure I
don't reinvent the wheel."

When I got Mike Richter - Mr. Online Opera and a fellow fan of Murphy's
music - into the loop, he advised the composer wisely:

"Were I faced with the challenge of an opera and blessed with a tenth of
the talent (to say nothing of having learned a hundredth of the technique)
you bring to the project, I'd consider a more modest attack.  I'd look to
a song cycle as an entry point.  Some are nearly operatic in scope and
demands, they can be written for more than one singer, but most of all
they are performable in the real world without needing the aegis of a
multi-millionaire sponsor.  If the cycle as a whole, or even selected
songs, find favor with a 'name' singer, you will become known in the
vocal field.

Murphy agreed:  "Done.  Two of my commissions over the next 18 months are
for song cycles - one for mezzo and chamber group, the other for tenor and
orchestra.  With these two pieces I should be able to iron out at least
some of the orchestration concerns, and questions I have.  I guess it will
also illustrate whether or not I have talent for voice and drama!  Hard,
but necessary lessons.  "

Further discussion revealed an artist with background, preparation and
experience where the first impression was only of flirting with the idea
of writing an opera:

"In 1997, I was invited to participate in a composer/librettist workshop
cosponsored by the Canadian Opera Company and Tapestry Music Theatre in
Toronto.  I refer to the experience as `opera boot camp." At the end of the
week, the assessment by the workshop people was that I was well-suited to
opera.  My own reaction was to run screaming!  I think that part of it was
due to the extraordinarily long creation time, and the bone weariness of
carrying that much information around in your head!  I finally came to the
conclusion that if I was going to give opera even one try, I had to plan
now because of the scope of the project."

Richter raised the question of writing for opera or instrumental music:

"My understanding is that there is a division among composers today.
Perhaps another Mozart will come along - are you she? - who will toss off
the ultimate in every form.  But until then, there seem to be composers of
instrumental music of various scope and composers of vocal music of various
scope, but few if any who are recognized in both.  Mahler and Bartok may
have been the last to span song and symphony; Schoenberg's operas and songs
are respected but not performed."

Murphy seemed less concerned about spanning that void than about the
practical aspects of engaging in a huge project that opera - of any size,
really - would mean:

"My big fear is to spend five years on an opera only to have it coincide
with three books, a movie, a play, and a couple more operas, all on the
same subject!  (Didn't this happen with the Titanic?) It should be possible
to find out what has been done, but it's a lot more difficult to find out
what is being done.  It's made even trickier because you don't want to
overtly suggest the subject matter and have it scooped up by a quicker
composer."

It was at this point that several cats were let out of the bag, showing an
idea well beyond the initial phase:

"I'll be working with a playwright and this will be her first libretto.
She's really talented and could easily create a story or a setting all on
her own.  What I suggested to her as an absolute goldmine for an opera is.
" [this was censored back then, lest the subject is to be revealed, and the
Curse of the Titanic strike again between 2001 and 2005].

Suffice it to say that the premiere you will now see - while it's performed
without Ricky Martin, still engaged exclusively by the Los Angeles Opera -
is of a music drama with a most potent subject, well deserving of Murphy's
outstanding score.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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