Today’s talk:
Background of G5
Text Setting as operatic practice
Harmonic series and just intonation
Examples
What is Ganymede 5?
A far-future science fiction opera in three acts
Libretto is by Croatian author Aleksandar Hut Kono
It was premiered in Philadelphia in September 2019 by ENAensemble
Act I was rewritten in 2020
What are the forces?
3 sopranos (playing multiple characters) and 1 tenor, with the leading roles:
Rita (soprano) a high-level political figure on Ganymede 5
Rava (soprano) an up-and-coming political figure on Ganymede 5
The Chairwoman (soprano) the leader of Ganymede 5
Seven (tenor) an immigrant author who has written an exposé on the underground “Nature Porn” smuggling ring on Ganymede 5
Smaller roles:
Beethoven (spoken) talk show host, Act 2
Dealer (soprano) Act 3, Scene 2
Junkie (soprano) Act 3, Scene 2
Chamber ensemble
Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon (doubling contrabassoon), percussion, violin, viola, cello
Pre-recorded electronic voices messages
Pre-recorded and live-processed electronic noises
What’s the G5 story (pre revision)?
Background, in short, Ganymede 5 a space station colony in orbit around the Sun between Jupiter and Saturn. Of all the human space colonies (including the one on Europa visited in Act 2), it is by far the most advanced, but it’s technical superiority and wealth come from it' having nearly achieved a kind of fascist utopia. This utopian world is maintained by The Algorithm, an omnipresent computer program/social interface that continually adjusts and balances the emotional states of all of G5’s inhabitants, ensuring a kind of pure peace and tranquility. The only thing that can disturb this peace and tranquility is exposure to media of terrestrial nature, as it makes the nervous systems of the inhabitants freak out in ways The Algorithm cannot control.
In Act I, Rava is addicted to Nature Porn, and gets caught using it. As she is a high-level political figure, her transgression is more severe and is handled intensely. Rita, a political rival, is also into Nature Porn, but is able to deflect attention toward Rava in the ensuing investigation. The act ends with Rava being escorted away to be executed.
Let’s hear some!
Text Setting - the Heart of Opera
Opera requires a special attention to text setting. Getting text setting right means the music writes itself because the prosody, contour, and gestural drive is already there.
Opera is inherently a kind of Constructed Language. Constructed Languages - languages that are invented as part of word building.
How do we specialize text setting to tell a story? The “I love you” example.
How do we then apply “affect,” accents, mannerisms, etc.?
What about melismas???
The Ganymede 5 pseudo constructed language rules:
Melisma contours to determine different kinds of statements
Harmonic and melodic ‘accents’
Pictures of the cast and librettist!
In Act 2, we are on the set of a talk show on the moon Europa. There the author Seven is touring his new book about the underground Nature Porn scene on Ganymede. The interviewer teases him at first, but as the interview goes on, she realizes that he is deeply troubled by how he was changed while on G5, having had his nervous system upgraded a few times to be more compatible with The Algorithm. They argue about the righteousness of G5’s society and how it compares to Europa’s society, but the discussion gets too heated for the host (called Beethoven, because why not?) and it cuts away.
In Act 3, we find Seven back on G5 after his interview. Rita comes to him to see what he has for her, and he shares his various bits of Nature Porn with her. Together, they watch a video of sheep grazing in a field, they smell a vial of hay, and the fist fight for fun. Then he hears from his dealer that they have something “Alive!” and they both sprint to the dealer. The dealer has bees and Seven and Rita steal them. The fight over the jar of bees, both becoming more unhinged as they get closer to the Mother of Plants. Rita fantasizes about a future G5 that is a “hybrid world,” where The Algorithm accepts nature. The bees escape and everything goes dak. The end.
Accents of the Ganymedeans
High Ganymedean - all whole tone to signify no desire. It is always used by the Chairwoman, and sometimes by Rita and Rava (especially when talking to the chairwoman)
Mid-Ganymedean - mostly Whole Tones with the occasional semitone included to show a bit more casual, informal tone
Low-Ganymedean - purely atonal, no preference for WT scales and appears in moments of severity within a G5 interaction
“Nature Porn” Text - this is a non-Ganymedean accent that appears when the characters are interacting with or talking about Nature Porn. It uses the first 12 partials of the harmonic series, microtonally tuned
Let’s look at some examples!
High Ganymedean melisma and harmonic construction — Act 1, Scene 1, Chairwoman
Mid-Ganymedean melisma and harmonic construction — Act 1, Scene 3, Rava/Ahni
Low-Ganymedean melisma and harmonic construction — Act 3, Scene 3, Rita
Nature Porn Accent, non-melismatic, based on harmonic series
Brief aside on the harmonic series…!
The sound of a pitch coming from an instrument is a composite of many sound waves at different frequencies and amplitudes happening together.
This composite is called timbre and is unique to every instrument and voice.
The relationship of the frequencies of the sound waves are integer multiples of some fundamental frequency.
In the picture below, the fundamental is C1 and is 32.703hz. The next note, C2, is 2x that frequency (65.406hz). The next note, G2 is 3x the fundamental frequency (3x32.703hz = 98.109). This continues forever (or until the wavelength (given by the speed of sound divided by the frequency) is shortr than the material’s physical properties can allow).
The result is a series of pitches that do not sound in tune with equal temperament. In the chart below, the numbers above the notes (e.g. -31) indicate how many cents sharp or flat the pitch is from it’s equal tempered notation. A cent, in music, is 1/100th of a semitone. The 11th partial, being -49cents flat, is almost exactly between a semitone, making it a quarter tone.
Via wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music))
Two examples: Act 1, Scene 3
