How did your interest in opera begin?
My background was strictly instrumental as a horn player, playing orchestral and
chamber music. It wasn't until later when I studied music more seriously that I discovered
the extra dimension of the human voice, that most expressive of musical
instruments. In fact I would go as far as to say now that playing a musical instrument
is a kind of indirect singing,anyway. As I developed an interest in the arts generally I
realized that it was the concept of drama itself, as a principle, I found exciting. The
principle operates in the arts generally, most obviously in say, a Shakespearean play,
but one can also see the principle operating in pure symphonic music or even in a
painting of Turner. As music is inherently a dramatic language itself, opera is a
natural genre of drama involving literature and the visual arts as well.
What is your musical background?
My first instrument was the trumpet where I soon changed over to the
French horn as I became more seriously interested in classical music, generally.
I enjoyed playing in orchestras and especially chamber music with my family and
friends. I then went on to study mathematics at Manchester University where I
continued to play the horn and it wasn't until my final year that I felt a call to compose.
As soon as I graduated and started work I began to learn the piano and took grades
for the first time ever. I also studied 'O' level and 'A' level Music as a private student
and went on to do a second degree in Music, externally, through Durham University,
a degree specializing in compositional techniques. During these degree years I
learnt also the lute and dabbled with the recorder again. Finally I started to sing
more seriously and joined a local Operatic Society. My first original compositions
were a large volume of choral settings of the Psalms but I was drawn more and more
to the dramatic possibilities of music in the form of opera where now I am revising my
first full-scale opera Cinderella, commissioned by Porcupine.
What was your first experience of live opera?
There were two operas that I feel were significant for me. When I was still at school
I went to see an amateur production of Yeoman of the Guard where my father was
playing in the pit orchestra. The world on stage seemed so engagingly real and the
characters so credible and I sensed that 'suspension of disbelief'. But most moving
of all was the delicate balance between the comic and tragic all conveyed through
the music and stage action. A party of handicapped children were in the audience and
their vocal response throughout indicated their obvious delight of the whole and I
realized just what an impact music and drama can have.
My first experience of professional live opera was that of Fidelio done by the ENO at
the London Colliseum. It was a representational production rather than a period one
and all the action took place on an enormous piece of staging shaped in the form
of a cross. It soon became apparent that a Christian redemptive theme was being
communicated where perhaps Leonora's disguise was a parallel to Christ's incarnation,
where her mission was to release the prisoners, in particular her husband
Fidelio.This idea reached its climax at the Prisoners' Chorus at which point the
downstage end of this huge cross was slowly hoisted up into the air where the
prisoners, who had been concealed underneath, gradually emerged from its shadow
into the fight. It was a profound spiritual moment as it recalled Christ's harrowing of
hell as he died on his own cross. It showed in a very powerful way the different layers
that can be interpreted from the one opera.
What is your favourite opera?
I'm still convinced that Carmen is the queen of operas - it is a consummate marriage
of music and drama. In fact the music is the drama creating a whole sound world
of its own. Not only do you feel the passion and emotion in the music but the heat of
the Spanish sun, the heaving of the crowds and the stealth of night. Powerful
emotions are expressed which never encroach on the melodramatic or histrionic,
so faithful is Bizet's portrayal. The orchestration to me sounds so clear and vivid,
fresh and imminent. The greatest moment in the opera, I think, is when Don Jose sings
'La fleur que tu m'avois jetee' which occurs almost exactly halfway through the opera.
The bugle call for barracks has gone unheeded while Carmen continues to exercise
her seducing charm. The words which come out of his mouth are of devotional love
conveyed by an ardent melodic line. But the music betrays something more ironic:
the gradually descending bass-line and pulsating off-beat rhythms in the woodwind
describe a heart that has parted company with its head: doom underlines his
futile pleadings with Carmen and we are at the point of no return and a man is throwing
his soul away in vain. It is that devastating ability of music to express conflicting
or ambiguous thoughts at the same time, exploited so characteristically by Mozart
especially in his later works. One other highlight for me is the later entrance of
Micaela with her prayer of boldness to stand up to Carmen when she sings 'Je dis
que rien m'epourante'. Again the music is enacting dramatic irony here: Micaela's
words of resolution are introduced by a somewhat homely statement on the soft horns
which seem to recall a distant nostalgia, the remembrance of happy things that
once were - and will never be again.
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Who are your favourite opera composers?
As I came to opera after an interest in purely instrumental music it is interesting to
note how many so-called symphonic composers had a special affection for their own
operas. Beethoven and Tchaikovsky certainly did and, I think, Dvorak. Brahms was
very fastidious about subjects for opera and never got round to writing one,
unfortunately. Schubert never attained success in the operatic field though he excelled
in the miniature lied form, dramatic though many of them are in themselves. Perhaps
Mozart is the only supreme conqueror of all genres of music and then again his operas
are all quite different from each other. Here also opera influenced his instrumental
works whether it be a heart-felt aria-like movement in one place or a throw-away buffo
statement at the end of a sonata exposition in another. Bach composed a Peasant
Cantata which has been staged before now where he turns his contrapuntal skill to
the expression of wry humour.
The first opera I seriously studied was Purcell's Dido and Aeneas where I discovered
the perfect setting of the English language with such naturalness and spontaneity.
This ideal operatic treatment of the English language returns in the operas of Britten.
Peter Grimes is another example of that complete sound world where every note
seems to be a drop of spray of the cold North Sea. Finally, in having recently listened
to Philip Glass's Akhnaten, another sound-world is created using a severely limited
yet very apt compositional style for the evocation of the time of ancient Egypt.
Tell us more about your work as a composer
As a composer I am a late starter and am wholly self-taught. I have learnt by
listening carefully to all the music I have been practically involved in and by studying
scores. I suppose the resulting effect has been eclecticism. I began serious
composition with choral settings of the Psalms which were really experiments in using
a modal style enriched with a free but mild dissonance. I can never resist opportunities
for canonic and contrapuntal writing which also pervades my operatic score. I feel
drawn to the precepts of neo-classicism but with a sincere romantic content. I am
fascinated by Stravinsky and admire the often witty and clever work of the simpler
music of Prokofieff and Shostakovich. Other composers I am drawn to are Martinu,
Nielsen and Les Six. There is still a lot to be mined form the staple triad which the
Minimalists have demonstrated in such a profound way.
And what about Cinderella, your new opera?
Like Rossini's La Cenerentola there are no pumpkins and white mice! But there is a
shoe. Philip Tyler of Porcupine provided me with a libretto that inspired a great range
of musical treatment and, I hope, a satisfying overall form and structure for the music,
I wanted to ensure popularity and acceptability without sounding facile or condescending.
It is basically diatonic and triadic enriched with mild dissonance, free modulation
and contrapuntal treatment. There may be a hint of Webber here and there to
some but I'd like to think I've taken Malcolm Arnold's approach of shamelessly
using the popular for artistic ends. There are also some flights of pastiche, particularly
of Baroque styles.
Have you got plans for more operas?
I certainly have. I read widely, fiction and non-fiction, and keep a notebook where I
jot down possibilites for future operas. I would like to try all forms form the comic to
the tragic, whether it be fairytale, historical, legendary or Biblical. I have a couple
of definite subjects at the moment awaiting further study. Everything, it seems, has
been done before, and several times over, in cases. When such a treatment has
been a classic it seems like a closed book. To use a period compositional style as a
point of departure rather appeals to my studious and eclectic approach.
What are your hobbies?
I'm afraid my hobbies exist in fantasy only! That is, hobbies unrelated to music. I
enjoy singing and acting in local operatic societies, especially Gilbert and Sullivan
where I often play the comic baritone roles. I play the horn in an orchestra in
Nottingham and look forward to playing wind quintets in the summer. I concentrate
on my piano playing, which I teach (with the keyboard) for a living. But I guard my
time for reading jealously, whatever else I have to do. I read principally literature,
history, the arts generally and books on music, technical or otherwise. I cycle through
necessity rather than pleasure and try to get out more to walk longer distances.
Strangely, I have a secret longing to study some maths again, particularly the pure
side. But there is a lot of mathematical thinking that goes on in music anyway.
View Carlyon's page HERE...
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