Frank Lloyd Wright: Act III—Finale (2003)
Monodrama for baritone and orchestra
Boston University doctoral dissertation
Text: Emerson J. Purkapile
Duration: c. 30 mins.
The finale of Frank Lloyd Wright, a projected three-act opera based on the artistic life of the great American twentieth-century architect, explores the dual themes of reflection and resignation. The scene takes place at a college school of architecture commencement ceremony. Almost completely devoid of physical action, the drama of the scene unfolds on a psychological plane. The octogenarian Wright muses on the current state of architecture, and the future that awaits his young audience. In doing so, he reflects on his own journey in the field, recalling his personal need to break with the stranglehold of derivative neo-Classicism that reigned supreme as he began his career. More fundamentally, he expresses his lifelong quest to free architecture from the confining principles of post-and-lintel construction, basing a new indigenous American architecture on the inspiration he found in nature.
Mirroring the eleven-part subdivision of the libretto, the overall structure of the scene creates a large arch shape, comprised of various historical forms, recitatives and interludes, interrelated in a symmetrical pattern. The introduction acts as a prelude, during which Wright enters, processing to the podium where he begins his remarks. The odd-numbered sections act as connective tissue, separating the more reflective, even-numbered sections, consisting of a sonata, rondo, da capo aria, cavatina and passacaglia.
The scene revolves around the central da capo aria, set in a sardonic neo-Classical style, in a quasi-fantasy episode, where Wright, struggling to regain his composure after an almost complete breakdown, launches into a diatribe against the architectural world in which he was ensconced at the start of his career. His energies largely spent, the remainder of the scene involves an increasing output of introspective and largely fragmentary personal reminiscences, concluding with Wright’s acceptance of his failing faculties, and eventual death. For Wright, the cantilever, as seen in the broad horizontal projections of tree limbs and overhanging outcroppings of natural stone formations, formed the foundation of his new architectural paradigm. Utilizing the cantilever, he produced works with gravity-defying projections which float in space. With Wright recalling this powerful image of the fusion of technology and art, the work concludes.Light and Shadow (2002)
Song cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Text: Hugh MacDiarmid
Duration: c. 10 mins.
The three sections of the work, all with text by the Scots poet Hugh MacDiarmid, form a seamless whole. Drawn from MacDiarmid’s vast output of poetry, the cycle takes its name from the title of the first poem in the setting. Combined with an eye towards a commonality of idea rather than a conventional narrative thrust, these three poems nevertheless form a powerful, highly-evocative thread of the poet’s literary leitmotives, filled with vivid visual imagery of nature, time, space and stars. The setting of the first poem treats both the vocal part and accompaniment in an expository, quasi-recitative-like manner. The second setting continues to develop the motivic material, with the voice undertaking a more expansive, lyrical tack. The final setting, structured as a passacaglia, continues the motivic development, treating the voice in a fluid, rhapsodic manner. Having continuously progressed upward from the low rumblings at the beginning of the third section, the passacaglia chords end the work in the highest register, disintegrating into splintered shards of bell-like sounds, uniting an earlier motive associated with stars, with the previously somber passacaglia chords—“Oblivion and Eternity together.”