The shock and awe of new opera
Many of our hearts: former golden boy Oscar Pistorius and the murder of Reeva Steenkamp. By
little bit of pop-music inspiration, because some of her favourite songs are subtly referenced in the score.
“While a lot of the music is challenging, the beginning of the opera is easy on the ear, because it’s ironically poking fun at the romance of that deadly Valentine’s evening.”
Asman’s score, crafted over four years, was finally completed just days after Pistorius’s parole request was approved in November last year. It’s his first opera, having made a name for himself as a creator of innovative and award-winning symphonies that have been performed by some of the world’s top orchestras and ensembles in several of the most celebrated concert venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York City.
He says he was convinced of the power of composing when, as a young teenager, he attended his first classical concert in Johannesburg, where he grew up.
“It was Mahler, and I remember thinking, oh dear, a whole hour of classical music, what am I going to do? Instead, I sat in that concert hall and from beginning to end it captured me, held my attention, uninterrupted. I thought it was the most amazing thing, and I knew I wanted to do whatever it was that had made me feel that way.”
He became preoccupied with the ability of a composer to create music that “kind of grabs you by the throat and demands that you listen to it”.
He also jokes that he turned to composing because he was “a very lazy practiser” – those are his words. “I would get bored practising piano, trying to perfect someone else’s music, and became increasingly interested in creating my own music. I wanted to see if I could do what these big-name composers had done: make something new.”
He says that part of the joy of composing is that he is able to do anything, which means trying out things he hasn’t tried before.
“Composing is a bit like being a chef, I guess. You’ve got these ingredients, and from history and experience you know that certain ingredients go well together while other ingredients clash, and certain things you just don’t put together. But you can basically do anything. You are the one in the kitchen
deciding what happens, which ingredients are put together – and how. And then the audience comes and tastes the music.”
Just as chefs are always experimenting, Asman says he tries to do something different with every new piece. “Not necessarily new in the world, but something that’s new for me. And not everything works. Plenty of pieces I’ve written don’t work as I expected them to, and that’s okay. I’m sure some chef put ice cream on a steak once, only to realise that maybe a butter sauce would work better.”
Listening to the people working with Asman’s first opera score, though, it seems he created a recipe that works, and masterfully so.
And he’s managed to avoid excess cleverness or grandiloquence for the sake of it.
“It’s very cleverly composed,” says Dias, “but not in a show-off kind of way. I never feel that we’re fighting the music, which sometimes happens when working with a new, modern piece. There are these composers who like showing off, trying to impress everyone with the cleverness of what they’ve created, rather than serving the subject. Conrad doesn’t do that. He takes us along with him all the time.”
Abrahamse, who has directed numerous musicals and operas, at least 20 of them brand-new, says: “Some modern, minimalist
His score is challenging and the music is difficult, for sure … But once your ear gets
tuned in, you realise that what you’re hearing
is just incredible
composers can just drive you up the wall. I once directed Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale, and there were times when it sounded like a bunch of chipmunks got into the orchestra and just started banging on the instruments.
“The temptation with many modern composers is to create music for the aficionados sitting in the audience who, they hope, will be thinking, oh my God, how clever is that? That’s a tribute to Sondheim! Listen to that counter-melody.
“But the fact is that we, the listening public, simply want to watch and enjoy and hopefully follow the story.”
Abrahamse says he believes Asman’s score will capably take the audience on that journey. “His score is challenging and the music is difficult, for sure. It’s the sort of contemporary minimalist stuff that, when you hear it initially, you might kind of get a shock. But once your ear gets tuned in, you realise that what you’re hearing is just incredible.”
The world premiere of Trial by Media was on 11 April at Artscape in Cape Town. Shorts: A Festival of Pocket Operas also includes Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine (The Human Voice) and Mozart’s comedy The Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor). The festival runs until 21 April and tickets are available from Webtickets.