What's next for the great Cherubino and Cherubin, Melisande, Sextus,
Idamante, Cenerentola, Mignon, Perichole, etc., etc.  of our time?

How about Mrs. Madrigal of `Tales of the City'?

Even while still in Houston for the role of Desiree in `A Little Night
Music,' Frederica von Stade has an even more offbeat role being prepared
for her.

Big Ears here spent the day at a composers' symposium sponsored by the
Oakland East Bay Symphony, Jake Heggie among the participants.  And what is
Heggie doing when not working with Terence McNally on `Dead Man Walking'
for the next SFO season?

He is dealing with the pressures of preparing his first opera by writing
a half-hour choral piece for Chanticleer and Flicka (to be performed in SF
this summer and taken on the road), with text by Armistead Maupin -- about
the very latest developments at 28 Barbary Lane.

Even with John Adams and Apo Hsu not showing, `Upbeat to the New Century'
was a worthwhile event.  Chaired by OEBS music director Michael Morgan, the
panel included Heggie, Jonathan Khuner, Chen Yi, Marco Beltrami, David
Conte, Robert Maggio, Jack Perla, Gwyneth Walker and Olly Wilson.

One somewhat unusual aspect of the event was the repeated emphasis by the
composers on `serving the public.' In my experience, that's a welcome
change from the I Yam What I Yam school of composing.

Walker, who said she has been composing `since the age of 2,' came right
out and said that `music is a business' -- including classical music.  She
and her colleagues agreed that the burden of leading audiences to the water
and making them drink lies heavily with the composer.

Asked about influences, Heggie singled out Ella Fitzgerald, for the
`freedom, ease, coloring' in her interpretations.  Not a single composer
named serial or atonal composers as the main influence...:) There was a
virtually unanimous acknowledgment of the Bartok-Kodaly influence for
emphasis on the voice.

Among horror stories about getting into the business was Heggie's
1997 premiere of `Three Folksongs' (with Flicka) at the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, when a half-hour rehearsal before the concert provided
the first opportunity to hear his first orchestral work at all.  (The
performance was a success.)

Conte -- author of songs, choral works, operas -- stressed the importance
of the text:  `Start with words, stay with the words, words never let you
done.' The text he picks, Conte said, usually has `plenty of imperatives,'
such as psalms, with their `heightened tone' inspiring music.  He is
looking for verbs to `energize' the music, and he finds, follows the
stress in words.

Heggie recalled Flicka's concern about `falling leaves' -- she wanted to
know what *why*, if the tree was dying or was it fall, what was the weather
like...  again the stress on the text.

`Always in love with the voice,' Heggie -- an accomplished pianist --
admitted to his early ambition to write songs for Barbra Streisand and
Olivia Newton-John.  `Instead, I ended up with Renee Fleming and Flicka,'
he said, looking comfortable with that development.

Janos Gereben/SF
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