Wang Lu / Kelley Rourke - THE BEEKEEPER

THE BEEKEEPER (2022)
a chamber opera
music by Wang Lu
libretto (Eng) by Kelley Rourke

Concert/Workshop Premiere: March, 2022; Chicago Opera Theater
Available for a staged world premiere

Commission: Commissioned by Chicago Opera Theater

Roles:

Noah Cader – Late 20s/early 30s, Baritone
Pheobe Cader – Late 20s/early 30s, Soprano
Melissa Mervos – 50s or older, Mezzo-soprano
The Voices of the Orchard – Ageless, Three women

Instrumentation: fl(pic).cl in Bb(bcl in Bb).hn in F-perc-pno-2vn.vc

Duration: 50'

Synopsis:

THE STORY
Noah and Phoebe leave the city when he inherits his grandparents’ orchard. The young couple dreams of the life they will create together, but they are unprepared for what lies ahead. In addition to the never-ending demands of the house and the land, Noah is haunted by memories of his last visit to the orchard, many years ago. A neighbor, Melissa, provides a bridge from past to present, as the voices of the orchard bear witness to the many interlocking stories that have unfurled—and are still unfurling—on this bit of earth. A snapshot of the interlocking cycles of human, apian, and arboreal life, The Beekeeper is a meditation on time, grief, and hope.

THE MUSIC
Instrumental colors and textures create a magical, powerful and vibrantly unique sound world that constantly transforms space while heightening the distinctive emotional state of the characters. Wondrous orchestration and the mirroring of solo instrumental roles forge dialogues between the characters on stage and musicians in the pit. The score is open to reimagining for large forces including orchestra if resources allow. 

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Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator and dramaturg. Original libretti include Lucy, Natural Systems, and Stay (with John Glover); The Beekeeper (with Wang Lu); Wilde Tales and And Still We Dream (with Laura Karpman); The Jungle Book (with Kamala Sankaram); and Odyssey and Robin Hood (with Ben Moore). Kelley's work has been commissioned and performed by The Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Young People’s Chorus of NYC, Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, Carnegie Hall, Urban Arias, Met LiveArts, Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco, San Francisco Conservatory, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Chicago Opera Theatre, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, among others.

Composer Wang Lu writes music that reflects a very natural identification with influences from urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contours, traditional Chinese music, and freely improvised traditions. Wang Lu’s works have been performed internationally, by ensembles including the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Minnesota Orchestra among others. She received the Berlin Prize in Music Composition, Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award in Music from American Academy of Arts and Letters among others. She was a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. Wang Lu’s portrait albums Urban Inventory (2018), and An Atlas of Time (2020) were released to critical acclaim. 

  
For more information on 
Wang Lu, visit
psnymusic.com and
wanglucomposer.com.

VIDEO:

(The Beekeeper, by Wang Lu and Kelley Rourke, presented by the Chicago Opera Theater)

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MATERIALS: 
Full Score
Piano-Vocal Score
Libretto

Contact Wang Lu: Wanglu.newyork@gmail.com
Contact Kelley Rourke: KelleyRourke@me.com

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A Note from Librettist, Kelley Rourke:

What makes a story sing? Lu and I wanted to create a world that not only invited music, but required it. In fall/winter 2020 we had a running dialogue—over email and zoom—about works that inspire us. We listened to and discussed a wide range of music, including that of Benjamin Britten, George Benjamin, John Cage, Gérard Grisey, Leoš Janáček, Meredith Monk, Maurice Ravel and ancient Quin opera (from Lu’s hometown, Xi’an). I also spent time with Lu’s two recordings—Urban Inventory and An Atlas of Time—and was struck by how brilliantly she conjures distinctive worlds in sound. 

As we were getting to know each other, Lu sent me a Pu Songling’s Tales from a Chinese Studio. These beautifully strange stories, written in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, often involve the collision of humans with the supernatural. Lu and I felt that this idea could be a starting point for an opera, with parallel universes represented by distinct, overlapping sonic landscapes.

We tried on several scenarios before landing on one that is quite close to home for me. I planted three apple trees in 2009, and around that time I read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, which describes how four different plant species (apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato) have evolved in relationship with humans. Who, Pollan asks, is domesticating whom?  The facts of life that Pollan describes are marvelous—not supernatural, but super/natural. We decided to plant our human drama in an apple orchard and allow the land to speak, sharing the wisdom that comes from witnessing generations of natural cycles (including those of humans).

The bees add another super/natural layer to the story. Humans have been working with bees for thousands of years, but unlike cows, chickens or other livestock, bees are never really domesticated. They will, however, cooperate a mutually beneficial relationship—a beekeeper friend of mine calls it “a kind of grace.” There are generations of lore around beekeeping, including a custom of “telling the bees” about important events in keepers’ lives. 

Lu’s setting of the interlocking cycles of human, apian, and arboreal life are nothing I could I have imagined—and everything I could have wished. Although we did not set out to write a response to the pandemic, it is perhaps inevitable that our story is a search for meaning in life and death—a story shot through with grief, yes, but also wonder and hope.

A Note from Composer, Wang Lu:

When Kelley and I started the conversation on our opera, we were both interested in creating two interlocking worlds, worlds that each has a distinctive musical feel. Kelley is a beautiful writer who has a deep understanding of nature through gardening. The seed of the opera was planted at the start of this pandemic when much of our lives was put to a halt. I took quiet walks and kept hearing and noticing from our suspended surroundings: the breeze through woods, slow crawling insects, resting birds, lavish dandelions, fireflies, the colorful pollen on wet soil, and wondering coyotes… As our conversations carried on, we eventually landed in an apple orchard, where one man’s complicated family history is intertwined with rhythms that govern the earth itself. We made an opera with all the dramatic ups and downs that penetrate the audience from moment to moment. Besides the narrative, my compositional language and Kelley’s writing style already bring unmistakable characteristics to a unique sound world and story. It is just like accents and dialects reveal our identities inadvertently when we speak. We hope that our story distinguishes ourselves while connects with many of you.