Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270062
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HOWARD REICH KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CARLY SIMON EXTENDS HER SONGWRITING TALENT TO OPERA
By now, surely most listeners would agree that Carly Simon is both a superb pop singer and a first-rate songwriter.Her original works, such as "You're So Vain" and "Anticipation," endure as pop standards. Her saloon-song albums, "Torch" and "My Romance," musically surpass similar efforts by Linda Ronstadt and Rickie Lee Jones. And her soundtracks for films such as "Heartburn" and "Working Girl" have won critical acclaim.
So why would Simon want to write an opera?
"Because I got an offer . . . and because everyone made me feel that I really could do it," says Simon, whose "Romulus Hunt" began previews last week at the John Jay Theater in New York, followed by an April 7 through 11 run at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
"I received a letter a couple of years ago asking me to write an opera for the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Kennedy Center, and I kept looking at it and thinking about whether or not this was something that I could do."
The letter asked Simon to compose an opera for New Opera for New Ears, a project that the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Kennedy Center hopes will build a new generation of opera audiences. The idea is to lure otherwise wary listeners to the opera with the tantalizing prospect of hearing music by an established pop artist.
Although Simon says she was a bit hesitant at first, eventually the producers persuaded her that "I didn't have to necessarily be a student of opera to write one. I didn't have to go back and listen to everything that Verdi and Puccini and everybody else had written, but that I could do it in my own way."
Not that creating an entirely sung stage work was easy. Once Simon and collaborator Jacob Brackman had penned a story line - about a 12-year-old coming to terms with his parents' divorce - it was time to face the music.
"Actually, it was easy enough to write the songs - or arias," says Simon, "though I didn't stick to the usual form of the pop song.
"But I didn't have as easy a time with the recitatives," adds Simon, referring to the elusive musical passages that precede and follow an aria. Traditionally, these sections fall somewhere between song and speech, with the characters singing phrases that carry no discernible melody or song form.
"So I made a kind of clumsy attempt at the recitatives at first, and then Jeff Halpern, the musical director and conductor of the show, basically taught me an awful lot about how to do it."
Dramatically, it seems aimed not so much at children but at those attuned to a child's world.
"It's true that the protagonist is a kid, but there are lots of adult problems covered," Simon says.