Merry Christmas (or A Book's Worth of Drawings)

"'God bless ye and have ye in His holy keeping, men,' murmured old Bildad, almost incoherently. 'I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye - a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either...Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts.'" ~Chapter 22, Moby-Dick

My brother sent me a link to this great blog that is also artistically inspired by Melville's masterpiece. Matt Kish, the man writing the blog has vowed to make one drawing for every page of MOBY-DICK, using the words on the given page to inspire his work. He's up to page 112. Check it out; inspiration is inspiring.

This is the link.

All Astir Part II (or More Blog Buzz about the Opera)

"During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when he ws going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard every day." ~Moby-Dick, Chapter 20

Parterre dot com has a rather witty mention of the upcoming premiere which links back to Art & Seek.

Here's the Link.

All Astir (or Jake Heggie Updates the Texas Community)

"A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp lookout upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the men employed in the old and on the rigging were working till long after night-fall." ~Moby-Dick, chapter 20

The North Texas Blog, "Art & Seek" had a post on December 9th entitled "Heggie Gives Update on Opera 'Moby-Dick.'"

Here's the link.

The Ship (or Creating a Payload of Knowledge)

"'But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye.' 'Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.' 'Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?'" ~Moby-Dick, Chapter 16

I'm home for five weeks over the holidays, which gives me a chance to seriously concentrate on my upcoming projects. I start the new year with a DON GIOVANNI, move on to a ROMEO & JULIET, and then go directly to a MOBY-DICK. The prep period is sometimes my favorite simply because it is me with my own thoughts. There's this joy in immersing myself in knowledge. Right now it's an interesting mix of Renaissance Dance, 18th century Spain and whaling...always whaling.

I'm reading three books at a time (a normal thing for me). Generally the list is comprised of a book about the current piece I'm working on, a book that has to do with the opera or dance business in general, and a book that exists for pure enjoyment. My bedside always houses these books, as well as a pencil and a packet of sticky notes for flagging and making notes in the margins. You can always tell a book I've used for research because it is overrun with brackets, flagged pages, copious notes on the blank page in the back and little stars and illegible words in the margins. I am not reverential to the books themselves, only to the words on the page. My thought process is tactile; I need to feel myself writing the words in order to remember and comprehend them.

My working book list for MOBY-DICK (as of right now) is as follows:

--Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (Norton Critical Edition). This is the bible of our opera. I've mentioned the importance of having the critical edition before. The footnotes alone are enough information to get me started on deciphering the libretto and the world in which the whalers inhabit. I FINALLY finished this great tome. The night I read the last words and shut the back cover, I let out such a whoop and holler that my cats nearly jumped to the ceiling. There's nothing like that sense of accomplishment after finishing a particularly difficult book. Though I will say, I feel somewhat about Melville the way that Rossini felt about Wagner he "has some beautiful moments and some bad quarters of an hour." The story is in there...it just takes some effort to get to it.

--Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America by Eric Jay Dolin. The first book I finished about whaling. Very well written with many, many tidbits of information about the day-to-day workings of a whaling ship.

--In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. This is a book that is mentioned in all of the publicity surrounding this opera. Melville based his story of Moby Dick on the very true story of the Whaleship Essex, stove by a sperm whale in the South seas in what appeared to be a vindictive attack. A couple of men lived to tell the tale, and so we are graced with this book.

--Rites & Passages: The Experience of American Whaling by Margaret S. Creighton. This book is entirely about the personal lives of the men on board American whaleships in the 19th century. I am reading this right now and hoping it will give me insight into the day-to-day activities and thoughts of the common whaling seaman.

--Thar She Blows: American Whaling in the 19th Century by Stephen Currie. This book is a juvenile book, but offers some very interesting photography and drawings that I hope to have available to the cast and crew throughout the rehearsal process.

--Whaling and Old Salem by Frances Diane Robotti. This was picked up in a bookstore in Charlottesville, VA. It's about whaling in the 19th century and I hope it will offer up some interesting passages about the practice.

--Incidents of a Whaling Voyage by Francis Allyn Olmsted. This is a primary source, and one of the only ones I have besides the meager letters from my great, great uncle. It is an account of whaling in the South Pacific in the 1850's and I look forward to marking many passages that will give us a key to the thoughts and fears of the everyday whaleman.

--Whale Ships and Whaling by Albert Cook Church. This book is a coffee table book from 1938 with many pictures and diagrams of whaleships and whaleboats. I will use this as a source to make my own diagrams for use in the rehearsal hall.

After I've read all of these books, I will put together all of the notes I've taken and passages I've highlighted and formulate a document that outlines the whaling experience. Among my notes taken from books, I will also include tidbits I've found on the internet, photos I've procured and first-hand knowledge I've gotten from the store of primary sources in my mother's front cabinet. I am hoping that this will help all of us in the room begin to understand the reality that these sailors experienced every day. My conglomerate document will help us all figure out how to pack a whaleboat, decide what leisure activities were popular on board ship, and understand the difference between a mizzen mast and fore mast. Only if we truly know what we're talking about will the audience be willing to jump board ship and go on a Nantucket sleigh ride with us.

I am truly in the deep end of the pool right now, and loving every minute of it.

Nantucket (or Let's Begin with Home)

"What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Bhering's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea Mastadon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!" --Moby Dick, Chapter 14

I am home for the Thanksgiving holiday. I've been traveling since July, and while I would love to be back in my little apartment in San Diego, it is certainly nice to be cradled by family for a few days in the end of November. Driving across the country for my work this year has afforded me the unique opportunity of stopping at my parent's farm on both the way TO the East Coast and the way back. Usually visiting my family requires a separate plane ticket all together. How lucky for them to be "on the way."

Family holds some keys to this journey of whaling research I've been on for a few months. For indeed, my ancestry is caught up in the New England whaling trade. Southhampton instead of Nantucket, but at the time they were all booming wharfs, and so my parents' house holds some interesting primary sources. The great thing about having a mother who is also the self-designated historian for the family, is that she has quite a few objects, books and letters that allow us some clues into the whaling life of the 1840's and 1850's.

Albert Gallatin Hildreth, my great, great, great uncle on my mother's side, went on several whaling cruises into the South seas in the mid-1800's, finally ending up as third mate on the whale ship Delaware, which sailed North to the ice. I believe that he passed away on this final cruise, which makes the letters he sent home all the more poignant. My mother has a bevy of these letters, which give an interesting view into the sailor's life at sea. Many of them come from Honolulu, which is where many ships stopped off before going further into the Pacific.

The letters are full of sadness at being away and a constant recognition of the miles and time between him and his family: "Dear sister [My great, great grandmother], I am going to sail in a few days and I thought I would write and let you know that I had not forgot you although we are a great many miles apart..." and "I saw Captain Nash on shore today and he he was going home. Oh, how I wished that I was..."

The letters are also full of first-hand information about sailing life and statistics, such as this passage written from Honolulu in 1858, "The new clipper ship came in last Sunday. She is a fine ship, she is 258 feet long and is calculated to go 20 miles an hour. She is going to take a cargo of oil home, the captain thinks she will carry twenty-five thousand barrels. William Parsons is ashore here. He left the Catherine of Newfoundland. He expects to have a ship in the spring. Andrew, his brother, is mate of the Martha of New Bedford along with captain Tucker of Sag Harbor. That policeman that killed the man has been sent to prison for five years. It's now half past twelve and I must eat my anchor..."

It's been amazing going through his words and getting a true picture of what it was like for these men so far from home, sometimes for years at a time. There are times, living in California, that I don't get home for nearly a year and I miss family so much. The heartache in these letters is palpable.

The picture is the other part of the story. My mother also has little trinkets from Albert Hildreth. Along with a set of net needles in a lovely wooden case, she has this emery holder, seen above. It has been intricately carved from whale bone, can be attached to a shelf like a clamp, and has a flat place on top for the emery board to be attached in order to sand and sharpen needles and other small utensils. Up close it is incredible to behold and gives an amazing picture of the craftsmanship that was happening on board these whale ships. It's the closest thing I have to holding scrimshaw in my hand...

So home is good for many reasons. It's wonderful to be working on a project with which I have a bit of a personal connection, and also good to be able to share part of my career with my family, something I haven't really had the opportunity to do with our lives being so different and far apart.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will leave you with one more family tradition. Having South Seas whalers in the family allowed the women of my ancestry access to pineapples, an incredible delicacy in a pre-industrialized world. A dish from that period of my family's history continues to make it to the table every Thanksgiving. It's called pineapple timbale, but it is actually a bread pudding of sorts with a pineapple base. The simple mixture (without distinct measurements...only oral and tactile tradition of watching my mother and grandmother make it for years) is a combination of broken pieces of bread, sugar, butter and crushed pineapple with its juice. After an hour in the oven, it's a bubbling, sweet mixture of tropical fruit and tradition from the British Isles (by way of New England). Whenever I find myself away from my family for Thanksgiving, I make my own and bring it wherever I am eating.

It's a flavor and feeling of home. And so is this project.

Happy Holidays everyone.

The Counterpane (or....And So It Begins...)

"My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them."
Moby-Dick, Chapter 4

The score arrived two days ago. It's quite large (578 pages) with a plain white cover and clean, fresh smelling pages. The box was sitting on my table when I walked into rehearsals. I ripped it open, pulling out the book from one end as my right arm sagged with its weight. It felt like promise in my hands.

I'm feeling a little under the weather right now and trying desperately to get ORFEO open in Atlanta, but I foresee many nights sitting in my bed, reading note after note as I attempt to learn every in and out of this opera. It's daunting and exciting all in one.

More very soon.

The Spouter-Inn (or The Summer Workshop)

"What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself - the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." --Moby-Dick, Chapter 3

On the first day I attended the Moby-Dick workshop in San Francisco, I pulled out my worn copy of the Melville novel, the one with the ornate Maori face peering out from the front cover, and asked Leonard Foglia if he was planning to paint up Queequeg's face just as Tupai Cupa's was on the cover (seeing as he was Melville's inspiration for the character). We talked about the swirls and curly-cues in the drawing and decided amongst us which parts of the intricate painting were the most interesting. It was amazing and somehow comforting and exciting to me that we were discussing this kind of detail 9 months out from the actual opening.

For a week in the middle of August, San Francisco Opera hosted Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, Patrick Summers and Leonard Foglia in order to listen to the first full sing through of Jake's score, and to work out kinks and problems in text, musical line and syntax. Singers were hired to learn the music and work through changes throughout a week of musical coachings and workshops, culminating in a full sing-through of the opera for the general directors and members of the artistic staffs respresenting the other four presenting companies. It was heavy but necessary work, and a kick-off of sorts for the countdown to April 30th.

Despite the fact that I was working in Colorado for the summer, I made time to fly out to San Francisco so that I could attend two days of the workshop. I wanted to be there for the first sung passages. I wanted to hear the conversation that resulted from first impressions.

It was a truly fascinating experience to sit amongst this group of men, hearing them discuss various bits of text: Gene flipping madly through his own dog-eared, tea- stained copy of Moby-Dick, Leonard following in the libretto set directly in front of him and glancing up at the score at the top of the table during musical passages, and myself, score in hand, following the notes as they were played in a relatively public room for the first time. This was the first time a certain passage of song had been launched into the ether, the first time certain groupings of Melville's words had twisted into the air in conjunction with music. How rare in this world of constant musical regurgitation, in this art form that has La Boheme playing in at least one opera house in the world at any given weekend, to listen to an opera for the very first time and KNOW that audiences all over the world will get to hear the same.

Jake was particularly interesting to watch. He has, I'm sure, such heightened sensitivity to his own music; his ears were pricked from the first minute in until the last note was sounded. He had a second piano set up next to the accompanist so that he alternated between sitting at the edge of the table and following the score with concentrated diligence to stopping the action and sitting at the piano himself to pound out a new distillation of notes, a suggestion for easier linkage or a more organic passageway from one idea to the next. His changes and interpretive suggestions were swift and his sitting at the piano always stopped everyone in their tracks, pencils poised to write down anything he said that may affect the way of their own performance. The whole process, in a way, was an interesting journey into the mind of Jake Heggie.

And despite the concentration and diligence with which the work was done, the room was not without levity. It was the laughter of a group of people who knew that their mission had begun; who could see the other side and had not yet encountered the fray at the depths of the chasm. The stress will come, as it always does when mounting such a large project, but for now it is the laughter of forseeable accomplishment.

I left San Francisco feeling hopeful. My journey had begun with them.