text by Dr Joseph Spence The Yellow Wallpaper The first song from
piece will be a halfway house between song and opera. Building on the Don Juan theme, there’s a 1930s play by an undeservedly little-known Austrian writer called Ödön von Horváth. The play, Don Juan Comes Back From the War , has one male part and 30 female parts, usually played by about six or eight actresses, and I am very tempted to turn that into an opera. The work with Cecilia has always had that sense of big church to it: buildings such as the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, or Southwark Cathedral DK: How much do you consider the venue in which the work will be first performed, either before or during writ- ing and composition? JS: The work with Cecilia has always had that sense of big church to it: buildings such as the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, or Southwark Cathedral. The pieces performed here were written for strong delivery in big spaces with extraordinary acoustics, and Puer Pacis fits that bill too. The Yellow Wallpaper has very much more that ‘chamber’ feel. I had probably envisaged a space like the Linbury Studio in the Royal Opera House, and the Lilian Baylis theatre at Sadler’s Wells is exactly that sort of space. However, in May it is going to be performed in a Prague venue which usually holds rock concerts for 2,000, so I will be interested to see what the effect of that will be! I have seen opera, and even song, fail in the wrong space. I have thought, ‘if only the acoustic was different, or the positioning of the audience and the performers’. I know a lot of singers who are wary of the proliferation of outdoor opera. Some professionals are concerned that there is more damage to the voice, with singers straining to fight with the elements and strug- gling with temperature differences over the course of an evening. I realise that when I write, I have in my mind’s eye a picture of where the work will unfold. I am tempted to say that the most successful pieces have been those which have been realised in the very spaces they were written for. ◉
It’s seldom mere mortals, Ordinary people, Like John and me, Can secure… dare I call it? An ancestral hall. Can secure… dare I write it?
A haunted house For the Summer. So happy, so excited. Now I will get well.
And yet, there is something, Something queer about it. This house. He laughs at me, of course. But one expects that,
In a marriage… In the Summer…
In a haunted house He is a Modern Man. With no time for things Not put down in figures. No patience with superstition; Neither with Faith nor with Fancy. He is a physician And perhaps… dare I say it? Perhaps… dare I write it? That’s why I don’t get well. I’ll let it alone and put down my pen… After I’ve written About this house This room and this paper Which excites me and revolts me And entices me… in. The paper. A smouldering unclean yellow, Faded here, gaudy there. The Yellow wallpaper. No wonder the children hated it! Here he comes! I must lie down. He hates to have me anxious.
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