By MIKE TEAL
Composer Daron Hagen will direct the world-premiere of his new work, “Orson Rehearsed,” at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago on Saturday, September 15, and Sunday, September, 16.
Mr. Hagen describes his work as “a 70-minute, multi-media, Joycean stream-of-consciousness dreamscape, comprised of the Zuzu’s petals-like memory shards of life, streaming through the mind of American filmmaker, actor, activist, and visual artist Orson Welles during the last hour of his life.”
The ground-breaking new work features electronic and acoustic instruments mixed with concrete sound environments, and although it is extraordinarily to have a work of this nature produced at all, this one is especially fortunate in being co-produced by Henry Fogel, former president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Hagen discussed Orson rehearsed with Wellesnet.
What attracted you to Orson Welles as a subject for an opera?
I’ve admired Welles since childhood. I had already internalized the “meta-reality” of an auteur like Fellini, whose films were so fake that they were hyper-real, by seeing “8 1/2,” and had thrilled to Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel cycle, with its chilly, sober sexiness. Hitchcock’s infernal mechanisms fascinated me, but he was a Brit. What I didn’t know that I needed was an American auteur’s touch. One evening at the Oriental Landmark Theater in Milwaukee I saw “Citizen Kane” the way it should be seen—in a booming, drafty old 30’s movie palace— and was branded for life. I knew that one day I’d treat Welles the way that he had treated his own life—as a work of Art that aspired to be more—more than just Art, more than just a life.
The title of the new project refers, of course, to Welles’ great torso, “Moby Dick Rehearsed,” which was never performed the same way twice. It also refers to the stance I’ve taken in treating my extraordinary subject—a man I posit considered himself in process until the moment he died, and for whom flamboyant behavior was a means to an end—a way to amuse the civilians while the deadly-serious business of changing hearts and minds was gotten on with by a world-class thinker.
What is your favorite score for an Orson Welles film?
In Marc Blitzstein and Bernard Herrmann Welles found true composer-soulmates. I wonder what would have happened to American cinematic film music if Blitzstein had followed Welles west to Hollywood instead of Herrmann. Blitzstein wrote some of his finest music for Welles projects. That said, Herrmann’s score for “Citizen Kane” is a marvel, of course, and my favorite of his scores in general. So much has been written about it, already. I’d only add that what strikes me most about that particular score is its intelligence and restraint: there’s not a single extra note, and the music is precisely “in tune” with Welles’ imagery, the musical language—a sort of Weimar expressionism brilliantly suited the expressionistic imagery and the agitprop gestures—is perfect.
What composers influenced you for this particular score? You also mentioned Marc Blitztien in one of your previous interviews.
I can’t think of anybody on the planet who would write this score except me (laughing). Or would want to, for that matter. It is hallucinogenic in its stylistic inclusiveness, integration of Musique Concrete, electronics, live performance, pre-recorded elements, and so forth. Possibly Luciano Berio’s “Sinfonia” is an influence—the ecstatic movement during which he overlays material on the scherzo of the Mahler Symphony No. 2, for example, and aspects, perhaps of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass.” But, really, this thing is a product of my own addled brain and heart. That said, Blitzstein’s music figures dramatically in one scene—an aria during which Welles reminisces about the night that “The Cradle Will Rock” was first performed.
I’ve never seen Bernstein’s Mass performed, but I love Berio’s Sinfonia. Do you have plans to perform “Orson Rehearsed” anywhere else?
I am discussing different versions of the show with a dozen different producers, ensembles, and venues. You see, the thing is essentially a big sandbox (or train set, right?) in which, for each iteration, we build together a new sandcastle-mandala. Afterwards, we sweep it away and approach the work in an entirely new way, with different forces, in wildly different venues. I think that Welles would have loved the paradigm.
You’ve indicated that your title is a take-off on Welles’s 1950s stage work, Moby Dick Rehearsed, which seems to be the most often-performed of Welles’s stageplays. Which production(s) of MDR have you seen? How were they inspirational?
I was scrupulous about reading everything available ABOUT the work, but it is the only one that I have NOT seen and studied closely. This intentional strategy was to free me from being overly-influenced by his on the fly decisions for the stage versions, and the documented version. The concept was the inspiration, not his exact execution of it, which is not useful to me.
Have you written music for instrumental ensembles as well or are you strictly an opera composer?
I have written five symphonies (for the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Phoenix Symphony, and so forth), as well as a dozen concertos for major artists, an enormous catalogue of chamber and choral music, and over 350 songs.
I am … prolific, and have been at it a long time!
What prizes have you won for your opera work?
I think that the greatest prize is the respect and love of one’s most-admired colleagues and collaborators. Making opera, like making film, is an intensely collaborative affair, and popularity has very little to do with excellence and a true devotion to and understanding of, the art form.
My operas are performed frequently and have won prizes, but the real prize is that precious phone call offering a new project. Fortunately, those phone calls continue to come.
How would you describe yourself as a composer? Avante-garde? Post-modernist? Serialist? Spectralist? Minimalist?
I don’t do that anymore. In fact, I no longer think of myself as a composer. It’s better that way!
Related links
Ticket information: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daron-hagens-orson-rehearsed-world-premiere-tickets-47720791171
Artwork and musical excerpts from the opera: https://www.orsonrehearsed.art/
Interview, for F For Films website: https://fforfilms.net/2017/07/29/orson-rehearsed/
Interview with Opera Wire magazine: http://operawire.com/q-a-composer-daron-hagen-orson-welles-the-biggest-train-set-ever/
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