Gene Scheer. {Photograph} by Kate Russell.

In early March, a brand new manufacturing of Moby-Dick will open on the Metropolitan Opera. In some methods, Moby-Dick already has all the things an opera wants: narrative drama, memorable characters, excessive stakes, and even the excessive seas. However to adapt Herman Melville’s basic textual content—typically known as probably the most well-known novel nobody has ever learn—right into a three-hour stage manufacturing was no small feat. (Bear in mind, in any case, all these chapters within the center about whale anatomy and theology?) Gene Scheer wrote the libretto for Moby-Dick, and composer Jake Heggie wrote the music; it was initially commissioned by the Dallas Opera. It was first carried out there in 2010, and has since gone on to audiences in San Francisco, San Diego, Calgary, and elsewhere. We talked to Scheer in regards to the technique of adapting Moby-Dick into an opera—and doing the identical for Michael Chabon’s novel The Wonderful Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which involves the Met in September. We touched on the nuts and bolts of staging whaleships, borrowing from and altering Melville’s language, and the shocking similarities between opera and silent movie.

INTERVIEWER

Have been you in any respect overwhelmed by the prospect of adapting Moby-Dick?

GENE SCHEER

When the composer, Jake Heggie, stated to the Dallas Opera, “We need to do Moby-Dick,” the creative director Jonathan Pell requested, “Is there anything you’d love to do?” So, sure. It was a frightening prospect, and it took a very long time to determine a method into it. For the primary six months of the method, I simply learn and reread the guide, which I hadn’t performed since highschool—and again then I most likely skipped some chapters. I used to be additionally studying criticism about it. I used to be involved not simply with the way to reduce it down but additionally with the way to actually adapt it for the stage. The character of Moby-Dick, or any novel, is that it’s telling a narrative. The narrator may be very distinguished. Within the theater, we’re within the enterprise of displaying a narrative. Relatively than what the characters are saying, it’s a query of what they’re doing and the way the motion can carry life to the story. However I may additionally see the chances instantly for the variation. There’s a lot about Moby-Dick that’s operatic—the language, the themes, and the facility of the story. All through the guide, there are these dramatic, extremely poetic passages that I may think about being sung, particularly in the event that they have been distilled down. And the factor about Moby-Dick is that whereas it’s a very lengthy guide and one which’s deep and dense, it does have a really compelling journey story on the heart of it. I knew we may exploit that.

INTERVIEWER

The place did you start?

SCHEER

If there’s a trick to writing a libretto, it’s considering first about what’s occurring onstage and never about what characters are saying. With that in thoughts, I noticed early on that because the novel is narrated by Ishmael a few years after the actual fact, I wanted to alter the dynamic of the story in order that we’re watching Ishmael get on that boat as the one one that’s by no means been on a whaleboat earlier than. For this reason I name him Greenhorn. And we’re watching him as he’s taking in all the things that occurs—and in the end, we watch him tackle varied views on the way to reside one’s life. So my first resolution, made along with Jake, was to make the primary line of the guide the final line of the opera, with the concept that since Ishmael has had this expertise, which we’ve shared with him, he can go off now and inform the story. On the finish of the opera, when the captain asks him, “Who’re you?” he says, “Name me Ishmael.” I actually needed to inform the story in what I name “actual time,” not as a reminiscence somebody was narrating. Then you possibly can see issues come to life. I needed the viewers to look at all of it simply happen, to look at Ishmael expertise this journey, which, once more, prepares him to have the ability to inform the story of how his life modified.

INTERVIEWER

I observed that the stage instructions appear to do extra work on this libretto than in others I’ve learn, probably as a result of there’s a lot motion within the novel and thus the opera. How did you distill the narrative into these instructions?

SCHEER

There have been many extra stage instructions in earlier drafts. When this course of began—and that is what I usually do—I wrote a forty-to-fifty-page therapy, which nobody ever noticed, of how the opera would unfold. After which I received that right down to fifteen pages, which the composer noticed, after which ten pages, which the dramaturge, Leonard Foglia, noticed. It in the end wound up being seven or eight pages and served as a top level view for the work that I ended up doing later. However it began with a forty-to-fifty-page account of how every of those moments would unfold.

As an example, early within the opera, after Ahab has rallied the crew to seek out Moby-Dick, they take their harpoons and drink out of them, as they do within the guide. Starbuck, the primary mate, will get this younger Greenhorn-Ishmael character and instructs him on his duties as a tub-oarsman in a whaleboat. However whereas he’s explaining, he turns into so overwhelmed with eager about the potential of not seeing his kids once more, and what’s at stake right here, that he fingers off the duty to Queequeg. Then Queequeg and Ishmael proceed, and their relationship develops. None of that’s within the textual content of the libretto, or the stage instructions, however I wrote it down earlier than I started.

INTERVIEWER

A few of the textual content of the libretto comes straight from the novel. How did you strategy that assemblage of Melville’s work and yours?

SCHEER

If there was any textual content that I may use from the guide, I might use it. Generally I might use a key phrase from the guide after which write round it. And somewhere else, there are lengthy passages which can be simply actually edited down from the guide. Generally I modified sure issues and stored others. Within the first act, when the crew first sees a pod of whales and Ahab refuses to decrease the whaleboats Moby-Dick isn’t amongst them—that’s not within the guide. However it’s a method of distilling the battle between Ahab’s wishes to kill Moby-Dick and the crew’s wishes to earn a living. Later, Starbuck says, Look, these guys must earn some money. There’s going to be a mutiny should you don’t enable them to go. And so Ahab says, “They pant like canine for money.” This attracts from a line within the novel, about how “money would quickly cashier Ahab.” I used that line as some extent of departure. It’s like whenever you throw a stone right into a pond. However one of many issues that’s so profound about Moby-Dick, is that whenever you drop the stone into the pond, it ripples out in an uneven method. Sure issues are highlighted and sure different issues aren’t. So the cetology, the historical past of whaling, all of the stuff that’s woven into the textual content of the novel—I’m making an attempt to get that really feel, all whereas telling this story of journey and story of battle that occurs should you attempt to management the world, which in the end is past anybody’s management.

INTERVIEWER

How did your collaboration with Jake Heggie work on this occasion?

SCHEER

Our collaboration mirrored what has been conventional in opera—the writing occurred first. Once you consider La bohème, for instance, that libretto was written utterly earlier than the music was composed. It took two years to jot down it, and Puccini was very demanding of the 2 guys who have been writing it, however he didn’t actually compose the music till it was performed. That’s what occurred right here as nicely. I did my six months of—name it analysis. I had notes, which I shared with Jake, about how the story may unfold, after which we went to the Nantucket Whaling Museum collectively, and we began speaking extra about it. Then I wrote a draft of the opera libretto, which I shared with Jake, two or three scenes at a time, to get his enter. Issues modified primarily based on the back-and-forth between us. After which once we had a draft performed, we shared it with the dramaturge, Lenny, and we met in San Francisco at Jake’s studio, the three of us, and simply went by it, dramatic beat by dramatic beat.

INTERVIEWER

Inform me a bit in regards to the go to to the Nantucket Whaling Museum. What have been you on the lookout for there?

SCHEER

It actually was a pivotal second. I had performed my due diligence and skim plenty of books on whaling. I learn a incredible guide from the late forties, most likely a very powerful guide I learn, known as The Attempting-out of Moby-Dick by Howard Vincent, in regards to the sources Melville assembled with the intention to write the novel. However there’s one thing about being within the museum and seeing the fashions and the precise whale boats. There have been so many issues that discovered their method into the opera primarily based on that go to. And one, which was completely essential, occurred once I was taking a look at a mannequin of a whaling ship. I noticed that there are three mastheads with crow’s nests. I had simply missed this in my studying. I assumed that there was one man or two guys on a single masthead who can be on lookout. However there have been three. After which I believed, Oh my God. Queequeg will get sick on the ship and has Ishmael make a coffin as a result of he assumes he’ll die. I knew he needed to get sick, however I didn’t know when. Taking a look at this mannequin, I noticed what would occur if these two shut pals have been on two mastheads when Queequeg will get sick, and Ishmael is unable to achieve him as a result of he’s on the opposite masthead. It was a really theatrical method of depicting what’s occurring. Think about two shut pals, and one among them goes to fall off the masthead as a result of he’s convulsed with ache, and his pal is unable to assist him. It’s a really dramatic level of departure, even with out phrases.

INTERVIEWER

We hold returning to the problem of dramatization with out language. How do you concentrate on that when writing a libretto?

SCHEER

Satirically, the artwork kind that opera has probably the most in widespread with is silent movie. In silent movies, the gestures are a lot bigger than in later movies. The subtlety in a silent movie comes principally from the cinematography. With opera, it’s very comparable. Consider the operatic gesture, the broad dramatic gesture. Within the opening act of La bohème, Mimi is developing the steps, holding an unlit candle. And Rodolfo sees her and lights the candle, after which she drops her key on the ground. He takes the important thing and places it in his pocket, as a result of he doesn’t need her to go, after which he pretends to be on the lookout for the important thing, and he takes her hand. All of that’s a part of the libretto, not a part of the staging. Then Rodolfo sings, “Che gelida manina,” or “How chilly your little hand is.” He sings the aria, however all the things is about up by the motion I simply described. You may think about that in a silent movie all of this might occur with none phrases—an individual comes as much as get her candle lit, the man sees her, she drops the keys on the ground, all the things.

With the silent movie as my North Star in a method, I used to be imagining Ishmael-Greenhorn on prime of 1 mast, Queequeg on prime of the opposite, and Queequeg will get deathly sick, and he’s reaching out for Ishmael-Greenhorn. You see Ahab on the deck saying, “Maintain your submit; don’t come down.” And Ishmael-Greenhorn says, “However my pal.” All of this might occur with nearly no textual content, simply with photos, proper? Should you take a look at each scene in Moby-Dick, you actually may break it down as a silent movie. That’s a part of writing the motion for the libretto. Then, in fact, the magic sauce is the music. In the long run, the subtlety and depth opera comes from the music, and my job is to set it up in order that the music can win the day. That’s what cinematography does for a silent movie, and what music does for opera.

SCHEER

You additionally wrote an adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel The Wonderful Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Did you strategy the scenes in the same method?

INTERVIEWER

It was a really comparable course of, with the same however distinctive problem. I used to be overwhelmed with the duty of Kavalier & Clay, in a method much more so than with Moby-Dick. It’s true that Moby-Dick is a really lengthy novel, and sure, a really profound and deep novel, and there’s so much about portraying whale hunts and so forth that’s difficult, however the story may be very concentrated. It’s very targeted. The whale bites the man’s leg off, and he desires to get revenge, you realize? The problem with Kavalier & Clay, proper from the get-go, was the size of time that the story takes to unfold. I needed to be very daring when it comes to compressing it, as a result of I didn’t need to inform a narrative that befell over fifteen years. The story within the libretto takes place over 4 years or so. And as soon as you alter that one factor, you alter plenty of issues. So it required not simply reducing but additionally discovering methods of reinventing the story.

INTERVIEWER

How did you cope with that problem of time?

SCHEER

With Kavalier & Clay, the large aha second for me was to carry three totally different worlds to life, every of which had distinct musical kinds, distinct seems to be, and distinct textures. First, there’s the world of the Holocaust, the world of Europe. The composer Mason Bates and I introduced this to life with a harsher tone that depicted what was occurring in Europe within the thirties. After which when the protagonist, Joe, involves New York after the battle, it’s the Superman comic-book world, it’s the Chrysler Constructing, it’s the power of those immigrants who’re arriving. It’s the Jazz Age. It’s swing music and heat and life and the power that was going by the world, clearly in response to the battle, but additionally simply as a part of America blooming into a brand new age. After which the third world was that of the artwork itself, the world of the comic-book characters that’s being created by Joe and his cousin. Mason created this electro-infused musical model to animate that world. We’ve got these three distinct musical and visible worlds, in order that when Joe discovers that his sibling has perished and his total household is gone, and he runs away from Rosa with none clarification as a result of he’s so distraught and misplaced, we have now a method of depicting it by letting these three musical worlds collide. And that’s what occurs.

INTERVIEWER

How do you concentrate on your position in writing a libretto?

SCHEER

There’s an previous Spencer Tracy line—he informed Burt Reynolds, “Don’t allow them to catch you appearing.” It’s a bit like that with writing a libretto. The issue with many librettos, particularly these written over the previous thirty years or so, is that they rely an excessive amount of on language to inform the story. They change into scripts fairly than librettos. After which you will have lots of phrases dancing on prime of chords. That’s not, I believe, probably the most profitable system for writing a very compelling opera. What you need is to distill it down in order that the music can actually convey the emotional stakes, and the truth of those characters. Which isn’t to say an excellent flip of phrase can’t be actually essential, and I hope I’ve been in a position to present that in each of those items. However the factor that in the end goes to dictate the facility of those operas, or any opera, is how the music succeeds in telling the story. As a result of ultimately, why sing? That’s one of many massive questions. Why are these folks singing as an alternative of talking? And it’s as a result of they want music with the intention to specific what’s occurring of their hearts and what’s at stake of their lives. And that’s why stakes are often very excessive in operas—so we have now to distill no matter these are down into textual content, down into scenes, in order that the music may be the marrow of the operatic expertise.

Sophie Haigney is The Paris Evaluate’s internet editor.