This thesis includes a portfolio of written compositions and a written commentary. The compositions submitted present the development of a bespoke notation that reflects a specific set of aesthetic concerns. The written commentary is comprised of five chapters. The first four each deal with a specific aesthetic interest and present the majority of the composition portfolio as an ongoing research project. The final chapter is a commentary on the final work in the portfolio, the opera Palace of Junk, and reflects on this work as the culmination of the research undertaken. Throughout the commentary, aesthetic ideas are considered for both their sonic capabilities and the possibilities of imbuing a more physical style of playing. The subsequent notation developed, represents a method in which the resultant sound and physical action is implicit within the score.

<p>As Catherine Clément argues in her 1979 publication "L'Opéra ou la Défaite des Femmes" most female operatic characters befall a tragic ending: death, suicide, madness, murder. Building on Clément and observations of more recent feminist scholars (Carol Gilligan, Susan McClary, Marcia Citron), and on the compositional work of Paula Kimper and others, the current project strives to problematize opera's dominant paradigm, and to use my artistic work as a composer to present a different one. With a dearth of stories that highlight the relationship between a mother and a daughter, I have sought to create an artistic work with strong female leads featuring women whose lives carry on and, even, thrive. It was a propitious opportunity to have been approached by conductor Sara Jobin and feminist theorist and author Carol Gilligan (under the auspices of A Different Voice Opera Project) to develop such an opera based upon Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". What better way to break free from a paradigm than to do so with a popular and well-loved novel? The present artistic foray seeks thus to depart from an accepted paradigm while remaining within the bounds of something fundamentally familiar and popular. In a separately available essay "Gender and Music: A Survey of Critical Study, 1988-2012", I explored a wide survey of scholarship on gender. </p><p>The feminist reinterpretation of "The Scarlet Letter" was first developed into a play, "The Scarlet Letter", work-shopped and staged at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, the Culture Project in New York City, the National Players, and the Primary Stage Theatre. It was ripe for development into a libretto for operatic presentation by a Different Voice Opera Project. As the selected composer, I began a long collaboration with Sara Jobin, Carol Gilligan, and poet Jonathan Gilligan (co-author of the libretto). Pearl, the opera, was presented in workshop versions by A Different Voice Opera Project at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA during the summers of 2012 and 2013. Subsequently, our collaborative efforts were expanded through the addition of Sandra Bernhard, a dramaturg and director for a community outreach program at the Houston Grand Opera. Through conversations with Sandra, the opera became more streamlined and I was able to give it a smoother dramatic flow. In particular, Sandra's advice informed much of the opera in terms of increasing the presence of the chorus to provide the medium through which Pearl understands her past. Musically, the chorus also becomes the third part of what I call "Dimmesdale's triangle of pressure" in which he is caught within a patriarchy and pulled by three separate forces: his love and family (Hester and Pearl), his responsibility as a minister (the townspeople represented by the Chorus), and a father figure and mentor (Reverend Wilson). The present work, extensively revised during 2013-2015, grew out of these experiences.</p><p>In Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", Pearl is a seven-year-old girl, born from the love affair of Hester Prynne and minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. The pregnancy of Hester immediately places her upon dangerous footing with her only preservation being silence. She is required to permanently wear a scarlet A upon her chest, whereas the minister, Dimmesdale, hides his identity as the father of the child both for himself and for the protection of his lover and child, also through silence. In the times of Puritan New England during the 17th century, a crime such as adultery (a term that is never mentioned in Hawthorne's novel) would have been punishable by death. Needless to say, the ability of Pearl and others to speak the truth within this story becomes much too perilous for the characters to voice. The silence surrounding the life of this little girl is the focus behind the development of our main character for the opera: Pearl as a grown adult, thus making this opera a sequel, of sorts, to "The Scarlet Letter". As quoted in Gilligan's 2003 publication, "The Birth of Pleasure": "At turning points in psychic life and also in cultural history - and I believe we are at one now - it is possible to hear with particular clarity the tension between a first-person voice, an "I" who speaks from human emotional experience, and a voice that overrides what we know and feel and experience, that tells us what we should see and feel know." </p><p>Pearl as a grown woman, reflects back upon her life as a child where she is both the main character and the narrator of the story, often breaking the fourth wall. In this sense, this opera is reminiscent of the term "memory play"; a term coined by Tennessee about his work, "The Glass Menagerie". In the opening of his play, Tom, the main character, begins with: </p><p>The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings. I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. </p><p>With the creation of Pearl, a new character, the opera is able to integrate the relationships that do not exist within Hawthorne's novel, providing the libretto fertile material through which to explore Carol Gilligan's psychological theories . (See page vi, Note 2). We now see the story through the lens of Pearl as she remembers her childhood with highlights upon her relationships with her mother (Hester Prynne), her father (Arthur Dimmesdale), her mother's husband (Roger Chillingworth, née Roger Prynne), the townspeople, her father's mentor, Reverend Wilson, and herself as a child, allowing for the creation of duets, trios, and ensembles to highlight these relationships. The most notable of these relationships is the one between Adult Pearl and her child self, Child Pearl. In this way, and reminiscent of Williams' "memory play", Pearl's memories and current life can now be juxtaposed, together in time, memorialized through the music that binds these events and memories together.</p><p>In life we can experience our past through memory. In film we can be provided with visual flashbacks to offer a retrospective. However, it is only within music where the relationship between two eras of self can be juxtaposed. Thus, the gambit of my opera is to find musical means where the audience may now experience the character of Pearl as a child, as an adult, and as both child and adult in duet, as an echo, as a memory, a reflection. This phenomenon is most effectively evoked within opera or musical theatre. While a libretto must fundamentally be created using fewer words than say a novel or a play - it takes longer to sing a line than it would to speak it - it falls to music to express that which cannot be extrapolated through words alone. This dilemma creates a most wonderful opportunity for music to soar with tension and emotion. It is the music that can bridge together certain characters and scenes through the creation of themes that represent (in the case of this opera) truth/honesty, a patriarchy, and love, among other themes as well as the representation of particular characters. The necessity for the score to embellish the drama through music's tools: melody, harmony, motivic development and orchestration, essentially enables the audience to draw closer to the story and the characters by means that only music can provide.</p><p>In creating Pearl, it was my hope to birth the first of many such operas that shift one operatic paradigm on its head. To create an opera where the main characters are women and where they both have independent voices and thrive. As I have written elsewhere: "Some, throughout history, have argued that music has been exhausted. That everything that can be said, particularly within the Western language of tonality, has already been said. However, I must wonder, did any of the authors of such statements consider that the female voice has yet to really sing? For, we are just beginning. And I cannot wait to hear what `she' has to say."</p> / Dissertation

My recent engagement as music director and conductor of Robert Nelson’s A Room with a View (1992, rev. 2004) has offered me the valuable opportunity to work on an opera side by side with its composer. The purpose of this dissertation is to reconstruct the various stages of the process of creation, interpretation, and performance of a contemporary opera, addressing aspects of the collaboration between the composer and the conductor. The methodology used in my research is based primarily on direct observation and interview. The investigation is conducted from the perspective of a “participant-observer,” due to my personal involvement in the project, as music director and conductor first, and then as interviewer and researcher. The document will be organized in three sections: - the first chapter will establish the context and specific features of my research, providing a scholarly background in relation to the study of the relationship between composer and conductor; - the second chapter will focus on the process of composition in all its stages. I have defined this as the “extended creative process” of A Room with a View; - the third chapter will discuss the Michigan State University production of the opera, considering several aspects of the artistic collaboration between Robert Nelson and me, as well as my involvement in the process as conductor. Through my research, I wish to provide useful insight into the crucial aspects of the composition and the production of new music. In addition, the project aims to offer a fresh contribution to the investigation of the relationship between composers and interpreters, and perhaps could provide some background reference for an interrogation about the current state and the future of American opera.

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This thesis presents the history of opera productions which have been staged by the National Theatre Opera Company in the Kolowrat Theatre during last fifteen years. The author reflects the problems of staging chamber operas in general and, by analysing several productions, she points out certain possibilities of using the chamber space for staging operas.

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La présente thèse a pour sujet les cinq premiers opéras du compositeur hongrois Peter Eötvös : Trois Sœurs, Le Balcon, Angels in America, Lady Sarashina et Love and Other Demons, opéras créés entre 1998 et 2008. À travers le filtre de la réflexion menée par Michel Foucault dans son ouvrage L’archéologie du savoir, il est question de déterminer dans quelle(s) mesures(s) les cinq opéras, envisagés dans leur rareté comme cinq entités singulières, viennent pourtant constituer une seule et même série. La réponse à cette problématique s’articule autour de trois parties. La première s’attache à la rencontre du compositeur avec des sources littéraires, rencontre qui oriente l’élaboration des livrets et qui motive le travail sur les langues russe, française et anglaise. La deuxième partie est consacrée à la caractérisation musicale/opératique des personnages, au traitement de la narration au sein des cinq opéras et au rôle de l’interprète, rôle intimement lié à la destinée des ouvrages lyriques. Enfin, la troisième partie se propose de présenter les cinq mondes des cinq opéras en tant que glissements de l’un à l’autre, en tant qu’héritages d’un passé musical recontextualisé et en tant que révolutions intimes et collectives obéissant à une unique visée, ou plutôt à un unique devoir : celui de la mémoire comme passeuse de vie. / This thesis is about the Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös’ first five operas: Trois Sœurs, Le Balcon, Angels in America, Lady Sarashina and Love and Other Demons, which were created between 1998 and 2008. Through the filter of Michel Foucault’s thinking developed in his work L’archéologie du savoir, the issue consists in determining to what extent(s) the five operas, considered in their rarity as five singular entities, form however one and the same series. The answer to this issue is in three parts. The first part applies to the composer coming across literary sources, which directs the librettos’ elaboration and motivates the work on Russian, French and English languages. The second part is devoted to the musical/operatic characterisation of the characters, to the narrative treatment within the five operas and the interpreter’s part, which is closely connected to lyrical works’ destiny. Finally, the third part intends to present the five worlds of the five operas as they slip from one into the other, as heritages of a recontextualized musical past, and as intimate and collective revolutions obeying one single aim, or more precisely one single duty: the one memory has to hand down life.