On the nature of opera

In considering the CJA as 'opera' I broached the subject with 2 people who would offer an unbiased opinion. These bullet points suggest further interogation.

Aine Sheil (lecturer York University)
- is CJA not a radio play?
- Approach to scale?
- Visual dominance ... Rick Altman's redundancy of image in cinema .. audio-visual contract is a conceit.
- full staging - in a Montiverdi sense i.e. framing the music rather than re-telling the story using another (perhaps contrasting and confusing) sense
- post authoritarian direction
- new media devices creating improvised/ generative libretto
- Opera is dead. Long live opera ... but what is it? Where can we find out? What is the recipe in 2010?

Tom Wallace
- does CJA still have voice, musicized language, instruments, dramaturgy (as opposed to the pre-digital concept of linear narrative/ the 'story LINE'), staging?
- am I entering this phase through a study of the opera canon? cv-no have accidentally found myself in the confluence of music and theatre through an interest in the phenomenological effects of listening and seeing.

Reflection and development of CJA

1. Areas for development:
1.1 Quad version
1.2 Staging in collaboration with Damian Cruden
1.3 Max patch for VJ to improvise with in performance

2.The question of reference material ... does it relate to the pluderphonics principle of 'to be and to refer'? The use of SA by RVW, to me, introduces a homeopathic dose of somewhere else into the piece. I consider that within the notes and lines is embedded a sense of somewhere else - as much as any tune that I may write could do.

3. Having introduced staging and lighting succesfully in so much as they do focus the eye onto the ear. AND that Damian Cruden insists its a piece for mainstage as it operates as both a 'human drama' and 'isolated in a vast landscape' - am I not heading towards a new opera paradigm through this application of music, technology and theatre?

Further discussion of CJA at YTR

1. Further discussion in pub immediately after performance.
1.1 AA - what is my purity of intention?
1.2 AA - black box comes with lots of baggage ... perhaps a white room installation space would suit it better
1.3 AA - visuals should never be allowed to distract the eye
1.4 je - wow ... that was difficult [studio]. cv - do you think we need a 'get out of jail card'? je - how would that effect the quartet dynamic? Shouldn't the laptops have a button if we don't play anything? cv - No buttons, we just need to develop better strategies for moments when the laptops are 'sulking' ... suggestion is the amplification of breath, of human presence.
1.5 BP - need to develop all elements
1.6 Ambrose Field - what was left in the memory after the performance?
1.7 DC - this sits between cinema and theatre. It has the danger of theatre*. The piece stretches across time: now and then, beginning of journey and lost in the journey. Both reflective and immersive. A theatre of the mind ['patatheatre? ed.]

2. Responses via email to the question "What did you take away with you"
2.1 Angie Atamadjaja: Visual memory of two almost lonely isolated beings on stage, both with full intense concentration at their own personal task and yet there's a quite and hidden communication between them. Quiet white noise that seems to pan in the background of the aural world. Craig talking to a walkie talkie. Sounds of dogs in the wind, for a moment, I felt as if I had been transported to the Antartica. Subtle moving lights, dark line light shapes and shadows of both performers in the first version. The large slow moving projection in the second version.
Is ‘theatre’ something that happens in a black box (ie something additional to the content of the work itself, which somehow is generated by the space/conditions/atmosphere) or is it intrinsic to the content of what is played out in that space?

The work you’ve tended to do in non-theatre space, vs the work you have done in theatre spaces – is there a difference in purpose?

eg you spoke about the work you’ve done for theatre spaces as ‘soundtracks’. Isn’t a soundtrack an accompaniment to other content (eg the play)? A play with sound accompaniment is conventional content for a theatre space and therefore conforms to the expectations/conventions of ‘theatre’ in that space? as opposed to what you’re attempting to do at the moment which is sound as content – which therefore is much harder for an audience to understand in that space, and may not feel like theatre to them? (Ie it may not achieve the sense that you spoke about of being in a black box and feeling that thing, whatever it is, that you think is theatre…)

Performances today

First version – its all about me, I’m deep in my own head behind my eyes. My experience is in a space that opens out beyond my vision, inside me. Its intimate, close to me, detailed, subtle, nuanced. I am lead by the sound narrative, and immersed in a sensitive, subtle place in my head that I have to work hard to process. It is leading me, but I am working hard to keep up, feel the shape, try to understand. I am not allowed to drift, it requires me to be singular. There is nothing else to carry me, distract me, allow me to rest.

Note – is this because I am an inexperienced listener? That I am used to seeing the world not hearing it? Is this what causes the concentration, the focus, the intensity?

Second version – it is all about me interpreting meanings. I drift, with noise in the background, on my own thought train. The experience of the sound and images carries me, quite passively. I create meaning for myself, stream of consciousness, word[image/sound]-association style. A city skyline silhouette shadow with orange streelights, the Blitz reigning down on the city, whirlpools in a storm. Its all the same, big, sound, which frees me to float on my own trajectory, think my thoughts. I am not following a sound narrative, I am immersed in an experience, which involves sound. I am drifting in and out, the experience is guided, suggested, not led. Its easier than version one, but much less startling, and less intense, and less subtle. Dreamy. Floating. The sound is the backdrop to the experience.

Note – perhaps this is because I’m an inexperienced listener? That I cannot keep the sound foregrounded if there are other competitors? That overall this experience is too busy for me to take it in, and so I make choices and the sound accompanies rather than leads?

Scribbles from notebook made in the dark, fleshed out:

In the second piece, there is a time when I think (sometimes contradicting myself, but perhaps it shows a journey!):

“Shapes – shadows, huge blocks of dark against the crawling screen. Large geometrical blocks of darkness, 2D screen but hints that these blocks of shadow / shape could create 3D perspective. This is exaggerated by the projection against the front of the desk jumping in space to the screen at the back. Interesting…

Shifting shapes, shadows and colour instead of image? Is this a potential solution for the ‘having-to-light-‘something’ problem ?

“Shapes of your bodies at angles - degree of tilt Jonathan is sitting

echoes geometric lines of shadow.

shafts/pillars of orange light upwards.”

Orange in the film and the stage lights.

I’m not listening to the words. I did last time

“I want to see the visuals now! But the desk and shadows of their heads are in the way.”

“Their movement / presence is a distraction rather than a lynchpin. They’re in shadow anyway – why are they there?”

* What does Damian mean by 'the danger of live theatre'? Is he inferring that the empathy that one enters into, and therefore the phenomenological journey our mind makes, when watching live theatre is a very private happening that could take us to areas of the 'human condition' that perhaps we wouldn't want to experience or consider in our 'real' lives, and therefore the presences and proximity of participant-audience and participant-actor reminds us that we are in the company of others, and should I be feeling theses things - case in point the empathy felt for Eichmann in White Crow, i.e. he is just an old man who couldn't say 'no'.

Private Performance at York Theatre Royal

Date: 11th March 2010
Location: York Theatre Royal a) Studio theatre, b) Main stage

Purpose:
To interrogate the experience of CJA from the audience perspective and to assess the role of lighting/ video polyphonic accompaniment. Each performance - with appropriate staging/ design - was presented to the audience. After which a group discussion interrogated its nature and meaning over the broad spectrum of aesthetic and artistic backgrounds.

Present:
Damian Cruden - Artistic Director of YTR
Dave Simpson - Deputy Chief Electrician, sound engineer, technical support for CJA
Mike Kenny - dramaturg, writer and play write
David Lumsdaine - Composer, Honorary Visiting Professor York University
Nicola LeFanu - Composer, Professor Emeritus York University
Ben Pugh - Producer, commissioning producer of 'Superfield [Mumbai]' for Bradford Mela
Mary Oliver - Reader in Performance, Head of Performance Research Centre, University of Salford
Peter Boardman - Late Music
Jonathan Eato - composer, improviser, lecturer York University, CJA performer
Hannah Bruce - choreographer, producer
Patrick Wildgust - Curator Laurence Strene trust at Shandy Hall
Angie Atmadjaja - Composer, Sound artist
Ciaron Bagnall - Lighting Designer for CJA (unavailable to attend in person)


FULL TRANSCRIPT AS PDF


EMAIL to Cairan Bagnall - lighting designer

Hi Ciaran,

clearly you are the man for this job - I enjoyed watching the Space
programme vid, really liked the tangible way you interacted with the light
source amongst the other art forms; embodying your artform and speaking
through it in the same way musicians do through their instruments.


So - what to do. Well, in the long term I would feel very comfortable and
happy having you on board, so that's that sorted. But in the short term I
am in the final stage of development so not all is lost. Perhaps a solution
would be to have someone at YTR realising your ideas - I have Dave Simpson
for the session, perhaps I could convince Chris Randell to man the board
(??) - the whole event would be documented and we could develop our
collaboration from that point.

Another thing you should know is that the CJA started life as a test piece
for a much bigger 'pocket opera' to be commissioned by the Laurence Sterne
Trust - a sound theatre adaptation of one of his books. CJA was developed
to convince them of the process and concept but turned into a really
interesting piece by itself. Anyway, the premiere for that will be in
November 2010 ... and it will be the same setup (except more musicians).

The common - and overarching - principles these projects have are
interdisciplinarity and embeddedness. By that I
mean that which is in-between disciplines; an area of creative, open space
suspended between the disciplines it sits amongst. Sound Theatre, is
in-between
listening and seeing, as such, it embeds one discipline within the other so
as they co-exist and become fused and inseparable. AND 'wholeness' of the
idea of the report/book i.e. if we take the sum imagination of all the
people that have read a particular book, or have seen a particular film, or
are sitting in the audience waiting for a performance of CJA, then this is
the territory that this composition attempts to explore [so narrative, or
dramaturgy, comes from within each individual].

Sooo - tell me what interests you and I will try to arrange that to happen
on the 11th.


BTW: other coincidences include Adel and Nettie, I was working with them at
the same time you were (but on a different project). Also would you let
Vicky know we have child number 2 due imminently, as she is the fairy god
mother of William. Andie sends a big hello.

Thanks for your positive response, and your great energy.

regards
Craig


Original Message:

Subject: Re: The Cape Jeremy Affair


Craig!

You will not believe it but I was literally just talking about you !!!
I'm currently working with Vicky Ireland, and we where just discussing
your piece at the Unicorn!! We're working together on a production in
Belfast..she sends her love!

Thats fantastic news re your child number 2! Yes, last time I seen you
both was at York Theatre Royal, how's Andie? Send her my love.

Also funny is the fact that I was also just talking to Damien Cruden
yesterday! Small world eh? :-)

Next massive coincidence is the piece you are developing. A couple of
years ago I was part of a group of artists in a project called "the
space programme"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz5z7dhUeqc

It was a first of its kind theatre initiative which included
architects, composers, actors, choreographers and visual artists
coming together for two weeks to collaborate and make work. My
strongest connection was with a composer and singer, we created pieces
working directly with musical score and reflected light, this then led
to my own experiments with dancers and a single source of light. Since
then and outside of my 9-5 Theatre work I'm obsessed with finding a
union between light and sound, studying Klee's work with painting and
music, working when I can with live music and constantly "seeing
sound"...

It goes then without much more saying that I'm EXTREMELY interested in
working with you on the Cape Jeremy Affair - I've just watched your
demo video and it's left my head buzzing with thoughts!

Killer is though that I'm not available on the 11th of March....I'm in
tech for a production in Belfast all that week and we've two dress
rehearsals that day...where does that leave us?? Do you have more than
one day to work on the project at York? My show opens in Belfast on
the 12th and I'd be willing to fly over to York on the Saturday 13th
if it was of any use?!

Gutted not to be free on the 11th....

Let me know what we can do to make this work!

Speak soon
Ciaran


Ciaran Bagnall Design