Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 20, 1994 TAG: 9405210013
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BY SETH WILLIAMSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Opera Roanoke's artistic director already has written one opera featuring the hero of Jonathan Swift's classic satire, and her second try at the same subject is due to be produced a year from now in Roanoke.
Bond and her librettist, Blacksburg author Ann Goette, will talk about the work in progress Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in Owens Banquet Hall on the Virginia Tech campus. The two-hour affair, including a reception and refreshments, is intended as a benefit for Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge. Tickets are $15 per person at the door.
Jonathan Swift would have been appalled to discover that his withering satire on human folly had been turned into an expurgated children's book in the two centuries following his death. For most young readers the bitter ironies in his account of the wanderings of Lemuel Gulliver are overshadowed by wondrous yarns of giants and talking horses.
In Lilliput Gulliver discovers a diminutive people whose grandiose pretensions are rendered absurd by their tiny size; the giants of Brobdingnag are similarly amused when Gulliver recounts the "glories" of England. In Laputa and Lagado he encounters quack philosophers and scientists, and in the land of the Houhynhnms it is horses who possess dignity and reason, while human beings are beast-like Yahoos.
Over nearly 21/2 centuries, Swift's characters and names have entered deeply into the imaginations of readers all over the world.
Bond's first attempt at adapting Swift to the opera stage was what she describes as a "rather literal adaptation" for "family audiences," which was commissioned by Stage One in Louisville.
That work had only a workshop production in Louisville. ``I was really dissatisfied with the work as it stood. The political depth, the sense of irony, was really missing, and it was in limbo for a while,'' said Bond.
The problem, says the composer, was that she hadn't yet encountered the right librettist.
That happened when she met Goette on a trip to Europe. Goette's novel "Midnight Lemonade" was published by Delacorte last year and is available in a trade paperback edition from Dell.
Bond says that Goette has crafted an exciting libretto which is a far cry from a literal rendering of Swift's novel. Now titled "Travels," the opera's chief connection to the original is the motif of a search for a better existence. In its new incarnation, Bond says, the work has strong parallels with Homer's "Odyssey" as well as with Swift's tale.
"The main character is now called 'Gul,' and it's basically a young man's search for his identity. I see the whole piece as a theme and variations, with Gul encountering the same archetypal characters in the different 'lands' he visits," said Bond.
In each place to which Gul travels, he encounters different versions of his father, mother, brother and sweetheart. His mother has been overprotective, his father wants Gul to be just like him, his girlfriend is cloyingly sweet and his brother sees him as unwanted competition.
In Latland, Gul finds a Latino community that initially looks attractive. In the Coming Soon Kingdom, which Bond calls "a televangelical land of false promises," he is hailed as the new messiah, with a father and mother resembling Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. ("Loaves and fishes and cars and yachts/Know God's love by what you got!")
Bodyburg is a gymnasium peopled by narcissists, and in the Laboratory for the Redesign of the Mind, individuals seek fulfillment through drugs.
Gul finally arrives at what looks like a perfect country in the Peaceable Kingdom - but he can only gaze at it longingly through the windows of the train, which doesn't stop.
Sunday's discussion by Bond and Goette won't be the only opportunity for a preview of "Travels." A workshop performance of Act I and possibly Act II will take place July 14 at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church in Roanoke.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***