USA Projects

Maurice Remembered will be an evening-length dramatic work.  It is based on E.M. Forster's novel Maurice, which follows the emotional journey of a young man in Edwardian-era Britain who must come to terms with his homosexuality in a society that regards it as "an unspeakable vice."  I created the overture and first act last year, and it was premiered this past February at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill by pianist/baritone Thomas Otten.  Act 1 presents Maurice's dawning realization of his sexuality, which initially appears to him in dreams, and ends with the ocean of feeling that overwhelms him as he discovers his first love, Clive.  Musically, it is influenced by Ondine, the first movement of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. 

 There will be an additional two acts in the work.  Act 2, Scene 1 will draw  on Le gibet from Gaspard, while exploring Maurice's despair and self-hatred when his first lover leaves him.    Scene 2 is informed by the  nightmarish Scarbo from Gaspard:  Maurice, feeling suicidally alone, determines that he must change his sexuality so that he can fit in with society and escape a life of loneliness.  He struggles desperately, but to no avail.  In Act 3, salvation appears in the form of Alec, Maurice's true love.  Using musical references to Ravel's sublime concerto, I hope to invoke the transcendence that Maurice finally achieves.

Maurice Remembered  is being written specifically for the remarkable talents of a special artist, Thomas (Tommy) Otten, who is both a world-class concert pianist and an accomplished vocalist.  On the one hand, the piece is a virtuoso tour-de-force for piano;  at the same time, it is a complex vocal/dramatic work.  While the singer/pianist as one entity is common in pop and jazz, it is unusual in classical and new music areas, since it is quite rare for a pianist to be a trained singer.   Maurice Remembered is a chamber opera, but in a very distinctive way – the solo performer acts the role of Maurice when singing, the role of  the narrator when speaking, but when playing the piano, is perhaps simply himself, or perhaps an amalgamation of Maurice, Forster, and Tommy.  Meanwhile, the electronic part, which includes excerpts and processed sound derived from Tommy's performances of the Ravel works dating back to 1982, adds to the  depth and complexity of the piece:  pianist, singer, and electronic sound as an expression of “multiple selves,” intertwined with multiple dimensions of time – past and present performances occurring simultaneously, memory and reality overlapping. 

This piece is profoundly personal – and I believe that which is deeply personal is ultimately what can be truly universal. The choice to base the text on E.M. Forster’s beautiful love story, Maurice, came from Tommy.  He chose it because  the reading of this novel in 1982, when we were roommates in college,  proved to be integral to his own coming-out process. As a composer, I have always had a certain ethical discomfort with the idea of putting words in the mouths of singers, so I am delighted that the text is something that comes, in a way, from the singer! Tommy and I agreed to prepare the libretto ourselves, and have received permission from the Forster estate to that end. 

The integration of the Ravel pieces into the composition is also a crucial component that draws from our shared history – this was the music that Tommy was playing when he was reading Maurice, and when we became close.  As a young composer still searching for her “voice,” I found that this music spoke to me in a uniquely powerful and direct fashion.  For me, while the piece is about Forster's novel and Ravel's music, it is also about my friend Tommy and his memories and connections to those works, and my memories and connections to him.  Most importantly, it is about the  universal nature of love and the search that we all undertake to live an authentic and fearless life.  The story of Maurice's journey from self-hatred and fear to freedom and love is one to which everyone can relate. This makes it particularly timely and relevant, as it speaks to our common humanity.

In a sense, Forster's novel is a fantasy.  In his moving commentary on the book, Forster admits that in reality, Maurice's story would most likely have ended in tragedy, rather than with the two lovers going off to live happily ever after.   And while we might like to think that Maurice and Alec would fare better in our day and age than in Forster's, that is, unfortunately,  not necessarily the case. The fact that Maurice Remembered is for a soloist hints at this: we show a man remembering, dreaming of events that may or may not have happened, or that may have happened only in his dreams.

The first act is unabashedly romantic, sensual, and dramatic.  It ends with a dream-like love duet for Maurice and Clive, in which both parts are sung by Tommy.   It struck me that unequivocal love scenes between gay characters are shockingly rare in even contemporary opera, so it was important to me to give the two men a beautiful love duet.  However, the fact that the duet is between the live singer and his own recorded voice makes a poignant commentary.  The lover is not a real, living presence onstage, but rather a disembodied voice, a voice that, in fact, comes from the protagonist: a memory, a dream.   

Act I  was an experiment:  would a chamber opera, with a solo performer acting as both pianist and vocalist, be a viable medium?  The answer appears to be yes, as the premiere met with gratifying success.   However, the weight of the piece – its heart – rests in the next two acts, which have yet to be created.  They present an immense creative, dramatic,  and emotional challenge.  The story now moves into a very dark and frightening place.    I have to discover a musical language that will delve into this darkness – that will express it honestly and viscerally.  For the final act, I must find a way to transcend  this space, to “come forth and see again the stars”, like Dante emerging from the Inferno. 

The first step in continuing with the project is to create the libretto for Acts 2 and 3.  This is a collaborative process where Tommy and I spend time together, going through the novel and discussing, arguing, examining, interpreting, and finally agreeing on what parts of the text are not only most essential, but also speak most powerfully to us. 

This process involves a lot of travel between Tommy's home in North Carolina and mine in New Jersey, and this is where I am asking for your support.  As I'll also need to travel to record sonic source material for the electronic track, we are hoping to raise $6,000 to cover these expenses.  If we can raise the money for travel, we believe that we could complete the libretto by the end of the fall:  at that point, composition of the music could begin in earnest.

I believe that Maurice Remembered makes a significant contribution to the 21st-century piano repertoire, and also to the continually evolving medium of opera in the 21st century.  More importantly, I believe that this work will speak powerfully and directly to the hearts of many listeners.