Bill Smith, composer
It has long appealed to me to write a jazz opera, and a couple of years ago, after hearing a beautiful performance of Monteverdi’s “Poppea,” I decided it was time for me to realize my dream.
In the Baroque period the continuo performers, harpsichord, lute, cello, etc., improvised much like jazz players improvise today from given chord symbols. There was also an economy of forces, a minimum number of performers used to maximum effect and a directness of expression. These connections inspired me to write this “jazzopera” for jazz players and jazz singers.
My plan was to work from Peter Monaghan’s libretto to determine the structure and compose the music. I would then record it with the six performers, three singers, and three instrumentalists, and present a public lecture with a premier of the recorded version of the opera. We made this “proof-of-concept” rehearsal recording with the assistance of the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and the wonderful non-profit, Jack Straw Productions, and then pressed on to staging the work with the kind assistance of 4Culture and Artist Trust.
My hope has been to achieve a new kind of opera that is simple and clear with maximum freedom for the performers, especially the instrumentalists who largely improvise.
Jazz tells the American story; this opera relates a modern American tale: A model astronaut falls for a colleague and desperately pursues him, then stalks and attacks a rival with a plan of action deranged and ineffectual. Such events express themes of power, desire, and desperation. They also crystallize around archetypal and mythic elements.
This project is a summation of the work I’ve done since 1946, bridging classical music and jazz. For instance, in 1956, Contemporary Records commissioned me to write a 20-minute work for Shelley Manne’s “tentette.” The result was my “Concerto for Clarinet and Combo,” a three-movement piece inspired by Mozart and scored for improvising clarinet soloist and 10 jazz instrumentalists.
In Space in the Heart, I draw on classical models, especially Monteverdi, to create a new kind of opera that involves jazz style and jazz improvisation using structures that directly reflect the drama.
Peter Monaghan, librettist
Space in the Heart came about after Bill Smith called me up one day and said “Come over; I want to talk to you about something.”
I arrived, and Bill served tea. He said he had just attended a wonderful production of Monteverdi’s 1642 opera, The Coronation of Poppea, and that it had got him thinking again about an idea he’d long had: to write a “jazz opera.”
He said he liked the Monteverdi work both for its simplicity and for its use of an improvised continuo line that resembled jazz accompaniment.
Writing a work like that would combine his two loves, classical and jazz music, he said.
Oh, and could I write the libretto?
Our tea was barely poured. My choice was to say “Well, no, I can’t,” and to go home uncomfortably; or, to claim that I could, and the tea was mine.
“Sure,” I said. I had no experience of writing a libretto; I’d written profiles of Bill for academic and jazz publications, and he paid me the compliment of saying he was sure I could manage it.
We agreed on what kind of opera it would be – a sort of sung narrative play – and on the personnel – Bill’s regular trio, playing behind three singers – and even on the general drift of the tale. A set of events had been in the news, involving troubled romantic ties among three astronauts. Many all-too-human details had seeped out.
In Hollywood, it often seems, stories become possible only when “actual events” make it unnecessary to imagine them. “Based on a true story” is offered as a warranty, but it often looks more like an admission, a concession.
I wondered: Could a fiction take shape despite “actual events”? Could it forego lurid sensation, indulged and broadcasted without empathy, in favor of asking what the protagonists’ actual sentiments and motivations might be?
That was the challenge. Mind you, if you make an opera, it surely must include such essentials of the form as over-the-top desire and affect. Fair enough, too. After all, isn’t the prolonged, self-abasing tantrum a standard-issue dart in Cupid’s quiver?
And the drama would need not just operatic heaving – or at least, outlandish but still wrenching lyrics like you find in, say, mariachi songs – but also local color. Well, perhaps astronauts should speak a little like characters in dime-store Western novels, to convey their terribly Texan, callow, hyper-romantic ethos of conquering space through extra-orbital flight.
But more than anything, of course, Space in the Heart would have to have some funny bits, and some sad bits. Because, if you make ’em laugh some, and make ’em cry some… Well, then you have a show, don’t you?
SPACE IN THE HEART
A jazz opera in seven scenes for clarinet trio and three singers
– despite any real, actual events
Libretto (c) Peter Monaghan
Hollis, an astronaut, captain
Simone, an astronaut, lieutenant
Mae, an astronaut-in-training
ONE
At their mission base, two astronauts anticipate a flight; a trainee flyer, assisting, contemplates them.
SIMONE
I saw him by a doublewide
as the desert swirled in dusty commotion.
His head cocked like a champion cowhand.
Tall in the chaparral. Tall as a champion in chaps.
He glanced sidelong and I was his;
he wagged his head and wetted his lips,
and I was his.
He wore a tight-rolled blue bandana;
now fate has made me second to his lead
in our race to outflank Venus and Mars.
We’ll race and outflank Venus and Mars.
HOLLIS
The cock crowed loud this morning,
I was up and at it;
I am up and at it.
We’ll ride the inner orbits now
and tomorrow gravitate to stars.
Girl, I’ll have the moon in my pocket
and the sun in our sights.
Well, let’s stop short of that, but fly mighty high.
SIMONE
The skies opened wider, the stars shone more bright –
the whole view and the glory as I saw it through you;
you and I twinned as some galaxies distant
and destined to guide us and keep us secure.
HOLLIS
Mmm, I’m up, so let’s get at it.
(aside) She seems to like the way I handle things;
she’s mighty fine,
and sure likes the way I handle things.
And, ooh, her saddle just begs me to ride it;
her haunches to bear me along.
SIMONE
We fly tonight toward Venus
to see that love lies there.
We’ll show all who doubt it, and then: home again,
secure: the love of Venus will carry us on.
In orbit She will bear us along.
HOLLIS
(aside) And she does seem to like
the way I handle things,
as we climb at a rapid clip and are gone.
MAE (attending them)
He has a way with her,no doubting that,
and a way with manning the ship.
I could use a little of that for myself,
down here like he plies the deep sky.
If I clamber on him I will climb up so high.
But she dotes on him, like a pup,
and laps him on to his task.
For now he’s all hers; she thinks she’s all his.
But she won’t pause to ask
if there’s a force that pulls things apart.
In a moment, it can pull all things apart. (exit)
HOLLIS
(aside) It’s just as it was when we started,
when I told her she was all fine woman,
and that we might try it up against the console –
asked if she would go full bore with a stranger
in Simulator Three, a booster module of our own.
With two hydraulic gimbal servoactuators,
one for rock and one for tilt,
that I could handle easy, eyes closed.
Like I handle her, easy, eyes closed.
Let’s get goin’, lieutenant, it’s blast off! (exit)
SIMONE (lingering)
My hollowed heart, a year ago,
Now such a heart within it.
Dim I saw my passion grow,
Yet now he’s mine, blood and bone.
My saddest hours and longing, gone;
My sorrows buried under song;
Warm when bitter winds first call;
A man to cheer as last leaves fall.
Dark I saw my passion grow,
My hollowed heart, now set aglow.
My savior’s heart, mine alone.
He’s mine, alone. (exit)
TWO
The trainee awaits the flyers, who are about to return from their mission.
Enter Mae
MAE
They’ve been up there for seven days,
Around the globe, nothing out of sorts;
all dizzying her head with him,
her, spinning, all dizzy and dim,
dazzled, distracted, by space and by him;
and meanwhile he’s stepping bravely –
out of the ship, into sunlit void.
Nothing out of sorts… All shipshape on board…
when I hear through the crackle a shriek.
‘Dismay! Denial! That such a horrid thing could be!
How can such a shocking thing at all be?’
She had better keep what is to herself, the cow!
One word! If she breathes one word: on her ear.
Not one orbit more but tossed out, now.
The bosses have made that clear;
off the bat, made it patently clear.
Hollis & Simone return, Mae in attendance.
HOLLIS
What a way to fly, and to float.
To stride through the ether, stare in heaven’s eye.
Tell them gods: ‘Do me a favor;
take a step back and let me by.’
Get ’em out of my way, I stride by.
SIMONE
The earth seemed to jump as we entered her sway.
The ground rushed to us at more and more speed;
I was pinned like a bug on a museum board
but worse was to contemplate what I had seen.
At the border of sky and heaven we saw
the fabric of light and time warp and tear;
the grasp of the poles and the plain view dissolved.
We were set loose, in fright, in a shudder of fear,
the shields to our ship and our souls had torn through,
at what we witnessed, the vast stellar cold.
I shudder and clutch you, my intrepid love;
could it be so, at all so – all I had known
was not as it seemed; Venus was not as I knew?
My captain, I gasp to tell the tale,
of what we have witnessed, and know can’t be so:
That Venus is not…
HOLLIS
Dammit. Say nothing.
I know what I know, and you know.
But say nothing. At all.
I’ll savor for now what the thrills were, on high:
my body afloat as if no body at all;
I flew free of my bones and my heft and of time;
it all ended too quickly… but I’d savor it yet.
So, you: Say nothin’ of what else we've seen.
MAE (to no one in particular)
‘That such a horrible thing could be so!
My heart, my ideal, my dread, my woe.’
She had better keep it to her own damn self,
if she plans to remain here tomorrow.
If she breathes one word, bam, she’s out on her ear.
The bosses have made that clear; made it abundantly clear.
HOLLIS
Reentering ripped her senses right from her.
She lost all control of her head;
it wagged here and there, her brain a deal tardy,
when gravity and braking to Mach 3 hit her.
It whacked me too, but I steadied;
The ionosphere neared, where the solar wind stilled
and disrupted our hurtling smooth orbit.
I geared down and gunned it, as we cleared.
Flat to the floor.
As the taillights of earth spun and carved up our view.
SIMONE
And the vision that trailed us, the rift in the blue,
A sea surface swirled densely in acrid stew.
Not gentle; roiling... heaving… poisoned...
And Venus, no planet of love!
HOLLIS
Shut it!
SIMONE
No planet of virtue and gentle desire!
HOLLIS
Enough!
SIMONE
But a cauldron of sorrow and soot!
HOLLIS
Shut the hell up!
Makes no difference to me.
Can’t say’s how I noticed.
Makes no difference at all to the cheers and the whistles I’ve got coming to me.
“Criminy, now that man can fly!”
Well, I’ve flown me now 30 score T-38s
and there should yet be quite a few more –
at least if you’ll shut it and keep it shut, like you better.
SIMONE (wailing)
Goddess of good fortune
who’ll vouch for the chaste.
Evening or morning star, bright in the sky,
far more than any other.
Close sister to the planet earth,
who’d pour out her light to show a way home.
HOLLIS
Of this, sad lieutenant, I have no more to say.
The parades and the accolades are waiting.
They’re awaiting us all, but most wait for me.
He leaves; Simone traipses off, behind.
MAE
This sets things into clearer view;
I see now how all of this goes:
She said if he were to leave her,
it would tear her heart in two;
she would bring him the pieces,
lay them at his feet,
and die.
He thought her too dramatic;
so, frankly, did I;
but now the risk seems real. (exit)
THREE
At Mission Base, the captain and his lieutenant are locked arm in arm.HOLLIS
You noticed how dashing I was
as I led this expedition in my silver and most azure blue.
Does the thrill of being aloft with me
outrank all others?
SIMONE
I thrilled to fly by the planets with you,
but it was a distant second to being aloft in love.
Now I imagine you husband, safety, home –
I sense myself bolder, sheltered by you,
And bound to you, a tether that cannot be cut.
Don’t be indifferent, hungry, rough;
don’t pain me by making me wait.
But marry me.
Can we have seen right, as we swung beneath Mars?
HOLLIS
Enough about Venus, and its damned...
SIMONE
Whatever she harbors for us,
I’d stay with you as if on a burning ship,
until we gasped our last breath,
even though I had my chance to leave, alone of two.
I’d stay then with you, alone, we two.
If you’ll stay with me
and protect me from the void and from fear.
[a deep-space BOOM, off]
HOLLIS
A distant boom!
SIMONE
A shudder;
a strike that tolls our deception,
that tells what we hold to ourselves.
HOLLIS
So?
We foist it on many and yet they applaud
that we, fearless, faced down the blankest divide.
What is lost? We, in space, have been found.
We departed as heroes, and return as far more.
Even I can’t deny it in my silver and blue:
How many men can tog up so bright and epic, heroic?
(aside) She’d geld me with chores of a common man.
Her marriage is a prison of nagging need.
No glory there!
Now, I’m any shape I wish, in esteem.
She will sap me – I, now impregnable –
Drain me to coddle the sap of her.
Sentiment! It’s a royal pain in the ass.
But I can’t, at this moment, deny her.
How could you doubt me, my dazzling lieutenant,
I who’d take you, a Venus, to the stars?
We’ll pick the date presently,
And of course we will marry.
(as Simone swoons) Catch her!
(to Mae) What? Is she dead?
MAE
In a swoon, you lunk.
HOLLIS
It’s like she’s swung by from some quickmart,
Grasping some tale of bovine love to school her.
And she’d marry me?
MAE
You know she’s on caution.
She can’t keep the secret, that’s hers to hold:
that Venus is no planet of love.
– I know, don’t even breathe it! –
No planet of love nor of tender desire,
But a tart of stale longing and heartache and lust
crossed by sharp light, cut in gloom and despair.
She’s no moons of her own,
aglow on the flats of romantic seas.
No, the woman will tell if it needs telling,
despite you, though you might fight Mars
and prevail in the most distant orbit.
You’d take the fight to Mars and defeat him,
Prevail in the treacherous orbits of stars.
While I’d take you for what I’d get and you’d give.
I’ll take you right now for what I’ll get and you’ll give.
HOLLIS (pulling her to him)
You know, you’d do to ride the river.
MAE
Well, mister, saddle up. We’d be doin’ no harm.
But for now, keep your hottest gun holstered.
HOLLIS
For you I’d be a stallion of full 17 hands, no fewer.
And I’d pack a hot colt as stout as a mustang.
MAE
Dude, lead on.
Hollis leaves with Mae holding his arm. Simone comes to in time to see them depart.
SIMONE
(moans, confused) What?
What is he doing?
Please, no!
FOUR
The captain reenters to confront the lieutenant who has seen him woo her rival.Hollis enters opposite.
SIMONE
How could you? How could you?
HOLLIS
It’s nothing. A lark.
What?
We laughed and sported in work;
nothing more.
SIMONE
I begged you to take me, and keep me,
which you said you would never deny.
I just glanced at you sidelong and I was yours;
you wagged your head, and wetted your lips,
and I was yours.
HOLLIS
You seemed to like the way I handled things.
SIMONE
I saw that love lay there.
I saw that love lay there.
HOLLIS
You saw my way with manning the ship.
You doted on me like a pup.
You fell in my lap and burrowed right there
While I flew free of my bones and my heft and of time.
SIMONE
The ship shuddered as the moment approached
that we lifted clear from the pad.
My shoulders pinned back and my heart pitched forward;
we leapt to the portholes, saw the earth swim away.
The haze and radiance beamed in your vizor
and its glint shone in your eyes.
HOLLIS (aside)
I got from her what she was giving;
I took her heart and breath and all.
She brought me her limbs and her loins to my bed.
She seemed not to mind; nor did I.
I’ll give her the bottom acre of my heart,
from a black hole of my soul.
Exit Hollis. Enter Mae.
MAE
She had better keep it to her own damn self.
The suits in the capital call you to account.
They wish to know how word has got out:
Did you squeal, did you moan about something you saw?
About what you witnessed in the interstellar dark,
licked only by sun and ship’s light?
SIMONE (traipsing off)
I sink into blackness eons deep,
In the dark of my setting soul.
MAE
The administrator doesn’t care to wait.
And he demands an explanation. (exit)
FIVE
The next day, the lieutenant observes the captain and her rival from a distance.HOLLIS
Mmm, honey, hitch yourself up here.
MAE
Don’t blow a gasket, mister;
I don’t fix to fight you off.
Is your O-ring rolled right up,
and is it sealed real tight?
SIMONE
Nooooo!
HOLLIS
It don’t matter, sweetheart;
This ship will float on right.
D’you realize, come to mention,
Our next mission is real near?
No one’s named beside me, yet.
Know anyone who’d dare?
MAE
Ah, well, let me see.
HOLLIS
We’ll swing real swift by Venus,
never stall or slow
whether or not it shudders or pales
in less coy planets’ glow.
I could use the bunkmate:
Up there it can chill,
It can chill up real quick.
MAE
Oh, I know.
I have someone who could help there,
I’ll send her word to send them word –
Tell the bosses in the capital.
They’ll get back to me.
SIMONE (aside)
Nooo!
He’s mine:
My desire, ardor, zeal.
She hooks him with her lures,
and lures him with her glances.
Fire boils me. I won’t heal.
My desire, my ardor, my zeal.
HOLLIS
I got work to do: tag up with the guys;
today’s the big install…
Although, right now, you got me thinking
about a pressurized payload of my own.
MAE
Don’t think you can rope up all of my time.
I got prep of my own, my own stuff, not yours.
HOLLIS (groping her)
Right you are.
MAE (pushing him off)
Unhitch you, eager cowboy.
I have jobs I must bolt down.
My study’s Venus, her caustic air,
whose acid renders as it swirls.
Listen: I crave you in a curious way.
I’d toy with you a middling while –
until I’m done, as time does ’til it’s over.
Then I’d send you on your way,
To chaos to return –
To Venus in her turning path, once fertile, overgrown,
Her bitter herbs in caustic gale.
Come, we’ll while a short, short while.
I crave you in a curious way.
The nights are long in shadowed Mars,
Until we round to warming day –
About our orbit, our curious way.
HOLLIS
Eh?
MAE
Assume little ’til you hear from me.
I’ll tell you so you’ll know.
Here, give me a little something now, no more. (offers her cheek; exit)
HOLLIS
Say what?
SIMONE (now approaching Hollis)
You’re mine. She won’t take you. You won’t give it.
You’re promised just to me.
You promised all you are, to me.
I’ll finish her. I’ll come in night’s deep gloom
and rip her heart from her, that plunders yours.
I’ve a blade that can cut her.
You bastard. What are you doing?
I’ll bait her and lure her and run her through.
HOLLIS
What? Insane! You’re insane. (pushes her away; exit)
SIMONE
She lulls him as a foolish boy,
She sucks his heart of will and steel.
A hero of the dreadful skies
And her – foul beast of dullest soil!
Hold me, bitter one, my heart;
Hold me, still, in pale cold sky.
In the warp of day, in night’s weft, dies.
The ache, the fright, the wand’ring cries;
The dead and gone whose dread hearts froze,
Who loved and yearned and gasped their lies.
I see them in your flint cold eyes,
In the searing sap on the withered rose;
I see them in your flint cold eyes. (exit)
SIX
The cadet enters, busy at her work at banks of controls and monitors.MAE
I’ll have my way with him,
no doubting that;
he has a knack for manning the ship,
and I could use a bit of that for myself,
down here as he plies the deep sky.
I won’t dote on him, like a frisking pup;
I’ll whip him to his task.
And if he thinks I’m all his, he’s mistaken.
Simone enters.
SIMONE
Here’s the heifer who would lead him –
I’ll haul her to some slaughter.
Or I’ll turn her with the bosses –
Make her the one who’s squealed.
I’ll find somehow to tell them,
that she’s the one who’s squealed.
Then tie her to a post and have her crave his image there.
She’ll know that his true heart is me.
MAE
I’ll rise up on him, climb up high.
But keep him on his toes.
SIMONE
His cold deceit now tears apart
the promises he made.
The potion that he poured me,
is bitter strife and harm.
Hurt I swallow all alone.
But I’ll conjure him more ardently,
And he’ll fill my dreams, my own.
Hollis enters and observes. Simone notices Simone’s presence.
First I’ll haul you off.
I’ll run you through.
Simone attacks Mae.
MAE
Get… off… me.
Have him if you want him.
It’s all the same to me.
(exit)
Hollis restrains Simone who slumps to the ground; Mae hurries away.
HOLLIS
Were we engaged to be married…?
Simone throws herself at him; he holds her away.
I smiled at you – was nothing more.
Sure, we went around a while,
but it was nothing more.
Hell, last week, up in San Antone,
I met some shy cadet...
She’s not your nevermind. (exit)
SIMONE (burying her face in her hands)
I saw him there, in love’s slow stream.
I call out, now: there’s nothing.
I lose my way and fall.
More strongly I’ll just hold him now,
So he’ll be there, and mine.
At heaven’s edge with sky I see
the ship’s thin shields torn through,
I shudder in a swoon of fear,
and light dissolves the poles,
I shudder in a swoon of fear,
in interstellar cold.
I’ll hold him, he’ll be mine.
SEVEN
The lieutenant wanders as if in a dream peopled by the captain and her rival.SIMONE
He glanced at me and I am his.
He wet his lips, and he is mine.
No one hears. I call his name.
He wanders, struck
by blows he cannot shield.
[BOOM] The sky dims; Simone huddles for shelter. Unaware of her, Hollis and Mae enter.
HOLLIS
It has two hydraulic servoactuators,
one for rock and one for tilt…
MAE (aside, sardonic)
Ah?
My head will spin, all dizzy and dim,
dazzled, distracted, by space and by him;
(to him) meanwhile you’re striding bravely –
out of the ship, into sunlit void.
SIMONE
More strongly I will hold him now,
So he’ll be with me, be mine.
HOLLIS
I’ll show you how to fly, to float.
You may quickly lose control;
I’ll gear down, gun it; we will clear,
as the taillights of earth spin
to carve up our view.
MAE
Criminy, you’re a man who can fly!
HOLLIS
Can many men tog up so bright and heroic?
SIMONE
Come, we’ll spin in orbit now;
tomorrow, on to the stars.
MAE
I’ll need a warmish bunkmate:
Up there it really chills.
The nights are long in shadowed Mars,
‘til we round to warming day –
about our orbit, our curious way.
But I have jobs I must bolt down:
Venus my study, her caustic air,
her longing, her ache and despair.
SIMONE
Dim I see my passion grow,
For he was mine, blood and bone.
The ache, the fright, my wandering cry;
I fade within his flint, cold eye.
My gladdest hours, gone, gone.
Longing come, love is gone;
Now bitter winter hurries on.
He holds me, cold, in pale grey sky.
Dim I see my passion grown,
For he was mine in blood and bone.
Mine, alone.
My savior’s heart, who gasped his lies.
My hollowed heart. He’s mine, alone.
SIMONE / MAE / HOLLIS
Love makes gods as weak as men;
Night is happiness, misfortunes, both:
Lust and deceit, sadness, silence.
Delight, good fortune, all is quiet.
The lights of orbits rise and dull.
Faith, ecstatic, may be spared.
Treacherous, sad with gods who’ve fallen.
At sea in the glow of Venus, her love.
At sea in the glow of Venus, of love.
- END -
