The composer’s El Gallo features not a single recognisable syllable but, he says, that’s no barrier to understandingI have a fascination with the human voice which borders on obsession. It has driven my work as a composer, musician and teacher, and it has driven my personal life – all my girlfriends were singers, as was my wife, dearest Maria Huesca. I’ve written 16 operas, all exploring different aspects of voice, music and language. Often writing my own words, language has often been crucial to my storytelling. So I have written about ancient Mexico in Náhuatl (in La Malinche), with the original words of real Japanese concubines during the 11th-century Heian period (in The Pillow Song), and with Homer’s classical Greek in his story of the Sirens (in The Sirens and the Sea), as well as with several modern languages. Interestingly, audiences always seemed to understand the story and the characters, whatever language was sung. So, in El Gallo, an opera for six actors and two string quartets from 2009, I gave up on language altogether and composed invented sounds; not a single recognisable word is sung or spoken by any of the actor-singers for 90 minutes. It has been performed well over 100 times since, and across three continents and won several awards, so I guess it is well enough understood. Language – or an absence of it – does not necessarily present a barrier to understanding in opera. Opera is, for me, about capturing and being involved in emotion. Continue reading...
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