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Street Scene For the Last Mad
Soprano (For
soprano with computer generated quadraphonic tape, text and music by William Osborne.)
Brief Description Imagine a
singer living among the dumpsters behind the Met. Tomorrow
is her big audition at the Opera House--if only she could
think of what to sing. She colors her world with
opera excerpts, grandiose Swan Songs and wild escapades
on her trombone-- but as she makes preparations for her
final big audition, we see that the brutality of the
street has long since caused the borderlines between life
and opera to blur. Street Scene
explores the belief that cultural identity is necessary
for survival, that it is a way of confronting our human
condition. We examine the stereotyped ways
women are portrayed in opera, especially the violence
they suffer.
Click here to download the score of Street Scene as a PDF file. (4.3megs) (The score is on European A4 paper. To print, Americans should select "Page Scaling" and then "Fit to Page" when Adobe's printer window opens. The PDF file is almost illegible on a computer screen, but prints beautifully.)
Streaming Audio Excerpts Page numbers indicate the page in the score.
Real Player at 256 k (If you need Real Player, you can download it here.)
Tomorrow is my audition... (p. 1, bottom)
I'm not saying we have a lot to sing... (p. 13)
My old friend Betty... (p. 9)
Will this [the trombone] help my audition... (p. 15. bottom)
Do you know what it means to be without a song... (p. 32)
Lyrical trombone solo... (p. 28)
Program
Notes
Singing Her
World Into Being
And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self That
was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except
the one she sang and, singing, made. --from The
Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace
Stevens
Oscar Wilde
once said, "Life imitates art far more than art
imitates life." This theme is central to
"Street Scene for the Last Mad Soprano". Through
art we shape the way we view the world and ourselves.
Through art we decide what we are as humans, and how we
will live our lives. Children, for example, love to
draw, but it is not merely playing. Through working
with crayons they formulate the nature of their being.
Through playing we become humans.
So how does
art affect you if the images it creates are demeaning?
Women
characters in opera tend to be abused and fallen, or
simpletons who make their living by embroidering, or
heroines sacrificing themselves for the well being of a
heroic man. Their identity is often determined by a
degrading relationship to men who are portrayed as
superior and in command.
We see the
Mad Sopranos increasing conflict with the way opera
subver-sively shapes her identity. Music theater,
for example, contains a great deal of ennobled violence
against women. Through operatic
aggrandizement, we celebrate simple things like wife
beating. The Mad Soprano, however, tells a less
adorned truth about the domestic abuse of her friend
Betty. But as she leaves off her roles, and speaks
to us directly, we see hints that her reality is even
more dream-like than the theater roles she is practicing.
Is what women perceive as their true world merely a
construction created by a male society? In this work
we also explore how cultural identity creates community.
Artistic expression creates rituals that give us a sense
of coming together and sharing in the identity of our
human condition. This is one of the most beautiful
and meaningful aspects of art. Groups, such as
women as a whole, that are not allowed to be creative
artists, are deprived of their humanity. The true
identity of women in society will be formulated only when
they are allowed to be artists and determine for
themselves who they really are. As women find their
true place in our culture, we will obtain not only a
greater freedom and dignity, but also a fuller and more
balanced understanding of human consciousness. The Mad
Soprano has gradually become so alienated from her
"own" patriarchal culture, that she no longer
feels a part of it. She slowly confronts the fact
that the roles she must sing are not only utterly
demeaning, but that more often than not, artistic
expression is reduced to being mere entertainment for a
society that has little cultural sensibility left --sexist or
not. The pedestrians applaud for her as if she were
doing tricks. Or they stand and stare because they
think she is dead. The time for
the Mad Sopranos audition eventually arrives.
Shes worried because she still feels she
hasnt anything meaningful to sing. She
doesnt know what to do, theres no time left.
She knows this could signify the loss of her humanity,
and almost screams, "Do you know what it means to be
without a song? People will step on you!"
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