The following are comments written about a public workshop on the work-in-process opera entitled Gertrude Stein Invents A Jump Early On. The workshop took place July 12, 2001, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Comments include:
Comments from the Workshop Audience
The City Paper Feature by Neda Ulaby
Redludwig.com Feature by Joe McLellan
"I hate to reveal this," says Chevy Chase, Md., poetry impresario Karren LaLonde Alenier, "but the first thing I read by Gertrude Stein was The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. I say that shamefacedly because that is not the work that best represents Gertrude—although it's what most people know. It's the story of a life and a relationship, not a story of her work."
Alenier has devoted the past five years to exploring another crucial bond in Stein's life: that between her and her art-critic brother, Leo Stein. The result, Gertrude Stein Invents A Jump Early On, is an opera chronicling nearly 40 years of the artist's journey toward defining and developing her work in the face of criticism. Alenier uses the Stein siblings' tumultuous relationship—which ruptured in 1913 and never recovered—throughout the opera to tell part of the story of Stein's life and oeuvre.
After Alenier first became interested in Stein, in the late '70s, she traveled to Tangier, Morocco, in 1982 to study for several weeks with Stein associate and expatriate writer Paul Bowles, during which time she worked on her poetry about Stein. This connection, Alenier believes, placed her in a kind of unique continuum with Stein and inspired her to begin writing creatively about the avant-garde American writer.
In Frebruary 1996, Alenier invited friends and fans to hear her and 12 D.C.-area poets interpret her then-one-act verse play on Stein at Chapters bookstore on K Street NW. It was in the excited aftermath of that reading that Alenier decided to develop the piece into a full-length work. And she soon began to see the play's potential as an opera.
"I cold-called composers and opera companies until I found the perfect match," Alenier says. She enlisted Nancy Rhodes—artistic director of New York's Encompass New Opera Theatre, which plans to premiere the opera next year—and composer William Banfield in August 1998.
"You can't really understand Gertrude Stein's work until you've heard it aloud," Alenier ideclares. "Have you ever heard her reading? There are recordings. She has this Eastern-girls'-school-beautiful enunciation—a beautiful speaking voice."
"Karren saw this as a very conceptual verse play," says Banfield. "I thought, What? What will people leave with? But I learned to enjoy the spiritual meaning that comes from her words and the dynamic that set all these people into a creative process." Banfield, who has written six other operas, began composing for Gertrude Stein Invents A Jump Early Ona year ago and finished two days before the panel discussion and performance. He used the "jump" of the title as a unifying musical theme and deliberately evoked period composers such as George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel. "They were all jumping—all of them," he says of Stein and her circle. "And opera is really just people singing through their stories."
Stein's original text appears only intermittently in the lyrics, for copyright as well as creative reasons. "I wouldn't pretend to imitate her," Alenier says quickly. "I want to give it a flavor of Stein. For the layman, it's hard to tell where my poems come in and where the lyrics begin and end. Stein's style is iterative. I have a line where Leo sings, 'She doesn't repeat, she insists.' Remember: 'A rose is a rose is a rose.' Besides this business of repetition, there is a lack of literary allusion, deceptive simplicity, odd juxtaposition of details, and an unbelievably optimistic outlook on all she writes about. The sum effect is meditative and hypnotic—even harmonic."
On a recent balmy evening, Alenier stands on the shallow stage of the Friendship Heights Village Center with her tow collaborators and a quartet of enthusiastic singers to alternately discuss and perform arias from Act 1 of the opera.
The audience—many of whom were present at the original 1996 reading of her Stein homage—responds with universal warmth. "Before this evening, I couldn't have imagined these words with music," remarks an older gentleman. "Now I can't imagine them without."
Neda
Ulaby
Washington City Paper
Volume 21, No. 29 July 20-26, 2001
Comments from the July 12, 2001, Workshop
Through a written evaluation form handed out at the workshop, the audience was invited to "Become a member of the Gertrude Stein Opera Development Team." The audience included artists of all genres—poets, visual artists, musician/composers, dancers— as well as opera buffs and those with no opera experience at all. These questions were posed:
Were the panel discussion and musical excertps informative and entertaining? What parts of this program did you like and why?
What suggestions do you have for the librettist, composer or artistic director that will help them make this work in process a success?
Based on the information you received, would you be interested to learn more about Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early on?
Here is a sample of the comments offered:
"The words, music
and singers came together as a living force. I wanted more and can't wait
to see the final production."
"Singing in English to an English speaking audience is both a blessing
and a challenge—some words I wish I didn't understand and some words
really carried me away."
"The word made flesh. Wow!"
"The tension caused by having Gertrude sing more on the upbeats and with
unpredictable starts and stops worked very well."
"The music is identifiably modern with the flavor of early 20th Century
French classical music, such as that of Ravel, Satie and Poulenc. I could
hear the Paris of Gertrude Stein's time in this music."
"While one attendee heard strains of 'Ravel, Satie, Poulenc,' I found
it a quintessential American opera, and heard Mennotti, Bernstein, and
Gershwin."
"The classical vocal style is not fitting with the jazz form of the music.
The two are fighting each other. Go with the sense of the tone poem. The
music is extraordinary."
"The lyrics, particularly those sung by Gertrude Stein, seem more sentimental
than Stein's modernist beliefs would have created. . .The music is wonderful,
although I would lose that little doo-wop moment."
"Very interesting process—good structure for discussion, performance,
and feedback. I especially liked Gertrude's last 'Take me as I am' [aria]
and 'The animals woo-woo' but also agreed with the desire expressed for
following the jazz element over the operatic."
"I'm wondering how much of Gertrude's language and spirit is being sacrificed
to keep this a traditional narrative opera. At this time, the opera seems
to run the risk of offending an audience familiar with Stein."
"Panel discussion was necessary, fun and inspiring. As a visual artist
I can now SEE this opera. This is exciting!"
" I was completely taken away by the opera last nightÉ The message or
messages are so powerful: "Take me as I am," the reference to art, the
acting. I am so inspired by what you have done! Last night when I got
home, I sat down at the piano and just played and sang. I made up words
and music and it was exhilarating. Thank you so much for your gift and
contribution to music and poetry."
"Very exciting to see an opera so new and be in on the process so early
in the game. This is a first for many of us who live in the Friendship
Heights community."
"It [the opera] has legs. No, wings."
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