Fugue for Three Voices, Part 3

More from a recent conversation with local opera composers Byron AuYong, Garrett Fisher, and Hope Wechkin (whose one-woman show, Charisma, premieres Friday at ACT), in which is discussed how to make a Cardinal likeable, ATF depression, and singing until the police come.

Seattle Weekly: Do you see other people performing Charisma? Does it have a life outside you?

Wechkin: It is possible—there aren�t a lot of people who play the violin and sing at the same time, but there are some. I don�t know if you�ve ever heard of Eva Bittova, but I heard about her 20 years ago. I believe she�s Czech. She was just here as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival. I went to hear her, and at one point she whipped out the thumb piano. I thought, "Oh, my God!" She has a lot of Eastern European influence [in her music] and that�s a big part of my background too. So in a weird way, it was like watching a d�ppelganger, aesthetically. But she uses the violin more often as an accompanying instrument and the voice as a solo instrument.

SW: That�s not the way you work?

Wechkin: It depends on the piece. In some, definitely the violin is the accompaniment, but in others it�s a duet: the voice is an instrument, the violin is an instrument. They happen to have a lot in common, their ranges and timbre. A lot of times, people say the violin is the most human-sounding instrument, most like the voice.

But yeah, absolutely I think it could be performed by somebody else who has classical training, because that�s where I�m coming from on both the violin and the voice—but then isn�t afraid to move out of that. "Sing and play the violin? You�ve got to be kidding! That just gets in the way." But in fact you don�t have to play like this [scrunches her face into her shoulder]. So I think it would have to be somebody who is willing to break some singerly conventions and some violinistic conventions.

What would it be like if it were a two-person show, an instrumentalist and a singer? It could be reworked; it would be totally different, because the role of the violin, it�s almost like part of the character. It�s not just the narrator—the crystal healer and the janitor [two other characters in Charisma] both use the violin.

Fisher [to AuYong]: I have a question for you about the piece I saw at the Asian Art Museum [Flying Bamboo, created in response to the Capitol Hill shootings]. What for you was the guiding principle there? Was it the people you were working with, or some kind of abstract spirit/concept that you were following? Was it the space itself? Because that seemed very important.

AuYong: I�m all about creating sketches now, something that will continue, so that version of Flying Bamboo is the first. From that I�ve created this Chinese percussion ensemble, that I hope will be what I do for the rest of my life. Because it�ll continually transform. . . They asked for two-and-a-half hours, and the reality was we can�t do a two-and-a-half-hour piece. So we created a piece and repeated it five times.

Actually, the next project I�m working on is related to this: Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas. I�m doing 64 operas on the street. Two- to five-minute things—again, studies. I�ll have eight singers and eight other instruments, and then they�ll go out and sing something—

SW: When?

AuYong: This summer, and then they�ll all be collected into a gigantic public happening at Jack Straw. . . One of the things I realized is—and this is where Stuck Elevator comes in—I thought if I just do operas with one person and one other instrumentalist, great, I can self-produce them. But actually it�s a lot of work—

Fisher: It�s a lot of work.

Wechkin: Tell me more about that!

AuYong: —so I thought, OK, let�s get rid of the venue, let�s get rid of publicity. . . So I pinpointed a bunch of different fountains, like outside of Victoria�s Secret.

Wechkin: Yeah, in U Village, that�s a nice fountain.

AuYong: So why can�t an opera singer go there with their instrumentalist and play there until the police come? That�s my environmental piece.

SW [to Fisher]: Have you ever done stuff like that, outside of traditional theaters?

Fisher: Actually, for Psyche, we�re part of [4Culture�s] Site-Specific Network, so part of the exciting thing about this piece is how it�s going to be affected by space, which it will. I�m working with a puppet-maker on this, who�s also an architect, so he�s kind of the art director, which means he�s gonna be space-man. So we�re just beginning to explore what that means. . . That�s in the summer. We�re going to do it at the Chapel space in May and that�s going to be a preview first-run-up-to-see-what-the-fatal-flaw-is, and then act accordingly.

Wechkin: Where did you do Stargazer?

Fisher: We did it at the All Pilgrims Church�not in the church space. We did it in the round, and we had lighting design where the sun kind of went like this [makes an overhead arc gesture].

Wechkin: Showing that in fact Galileo was good and the church was bad.

Fisher: There was definitely a political element to that piece, but our goal was to tell a story, with the Seeker, who was Galileo, and the Savior, who was kind of an abstract Cardinal. We tried to make the Cardinal start off being almost more likable, because he actually speaks in English and his tone is very one-to-one, and Galileo is singing kind of classical/off somewhere. So we tried to make it so you�re a little more enamored of the Savior at first. And then slowly the tables turn—you realize when the condemnation scene happens, it�s something crazy.

SW: Is the CD coming out commercially?

Fisher: Yeah, it�s on 16 Visions Records.

SW [to Wechkin]: How are you going to have your piece preserved? Have it videotaped?

Wechkin: Yep—actually we were just talking about that, the challenge of videotaping something onstage without it looking like your dad�s camcorder in the middle of the audience. You need two cameras to make it work.

Something I�m curious about, jumping ahead and anticipating the end of the show: What do you guys do, when you�ve done all this work and all this rehearsal—I don�t mean on a practical basis, but on an artistic basis, how do you archive it for yourself artistically?

SW: How do you let it go, and say it�s done, it is what it is?

Wechkin: Or not—or not let it go, or let it feed the next thing. Do you say OK, that was 2008, and now I do the next thing? It sounds like you, Byron, have this whole ensemble, and you know what you want to do for the rest of your life, which is pretty cool. But you�re sort of building this trilogy. And you [to Fisher] have this body of work. What�s been your experience "ATF," after the show?

Fisher: You definitely feel a big emptiness, and you can�t avoid it. I don�t know if I feel like it�s complete. I wish I did. Maybe I need a break from it? I can�t do it anymore, I�ve been around these people too much.

Wechkin: When you�re doing a one-woman show, this is a big problem.

Fisher: Yeah, you don�t have anyone to escape from.

SW: But the piece is the piece, and a production is a production. . .

Wechkin: They�re different things.

SW: Or are they?

Fisher: I felt more that way with Stargazer�I had Thom writing words, and it felt like he delivered something to me in the end that we printed up, and that felt kind of complete. But I need to work on my scores, making them something that you could actually send to someone else to do. So for that reason, I don�t feel it�s complete. But usually at the end of a show, when the set is taken down, and everyone�s gone, then it�s definitely "OK, that�s done."

SW: Do you have offers from other people wanting to do your stuff?

Fisher: Uh-huh.

SW: I mean not just produce it, but perform it themselves without you being involved.

Fisher: Yeah, I have one person who heard the Stargazer CD and wants to do it—and I would really love to send them the score and be done with it, and then show up and see what would happen. With Stargazer, which is more free-form, the [recording] becomes part of the score, so that someone can listen to it, even if I�m not there, and figure out what needs to happen.

AuYong: I think because I�ve come back into performing, there is a separation for me. As a composer, when I do my signature with the date at the end, and I put F-I-N, that�s done for me. I have another work that will be premiered in March, a violin and piano piece. I�m struggling with notation too.

SW: Your work has a lot of improv in it?

AuYong: I don�t think it does. . . When I perform there�s a lot of improv. And that I�m trying to transfer to notation, so when I�m not there in rehearsal it can happen.

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