{"id":169986,"date":"2025-02-21T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=169986"},"modified":"2025-02-26T15:04:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T20:04:46","slug":"how-do-you-write-an-opera-based-on-moby-dick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/02\/21\/how-do-you-write-an-opera-based-on-moby-dick\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Write an Opera Based on Moby-Dick<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Gene Scheer. Photograph by Kate Russell.<\/p><\/div>\n

In early March, a new production of<\/em> Moby-Dick will open at the Metropolitan Opera. In some ways, <\/em>Moby-Dick already has everything an opera needs: narrative drama, memorable characters, high stakes, and even the high seas. But to adapt Herman Melville\u2019s classic text\u2014sometimes called the most famous novel no one has ever read\u2014into a three-hour stage production was no small feat. (Remember, after all, all those chapters in the middle about whale anatomy and theology?) Gene Scheer wrote the libretto for<\/em> Moby-Dick, and composer Jake Heggie wrote the music; it was originally commissioned by the Dallas Opera. It was first performed there in 2010, and has since gone on to audiences in San Francisco, San Diego, Calgary, and elsewhere. We talked to Scheer about the process of adapting <\/em>Moby-Dick into an\u00a0opera\u2014and doing the same for Michael Chabon\u2019s novel <\/em>The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which comes to the Met in September. We touched on the nuts and bolts of staging whaleships, borrowing from and changing Melville\u2019s language, and the surprising similarities between opera and silent film. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Were you at all overwhelmed by the prospect of adapting Moby-Dick<\/em>?<\/p>\n

GENE SCHEER<\/p>\n

When the composer, Jake Heggie, said to the Dallas Opera, \u201cWe want to do Moby-Dick<\/em>,”\u00a0the artistic director Jonathan Pell asked, \u201cIs there anything else you\u2019d like to do?\u201d So, yes. It was a daunting prospect, and it took a long time to figure out a way into it. For the first six months of the process, I just read and reread the book, which I hadn\u2019t done since high school\u2014and back then I probably skipped some chapters. I was also reading criticism about it. I was concerned not just with how to cut it down but also with how to really adapt it for the stage. The nature of Moby-Dick<\/em>, or any novel, is that it\u2019s telling a story. The narrator is very prominent. In the theater, we\u2019re in the business of showing a story. Rather than what the characters are saying, it\u2019s a question of what they\u2019re doing and how the action can bring life to the story. But I could also see the possibilities immediately for the adaptation. There\u2019s so much about Moby-Dick<\/em> that is operatic\u2014the language, the themes, and the power of the story. Throughout the book, there are these dramatic, incredibly poetic passages that I could imagine being sung, especially if they were distilled down. And the thing about Moby-Dick<\/em> is that while it is a very long book and one that\u2019s deep and dense, it does have a very compelling adventure story at the center of it. I knew we could exploit that.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Where did you begin?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a trick to writing a libretto, it\u2019s thinking first about what\u2019s happening onstage and not about what characters are saying. With that in mind, I realized early on that since the novel is narrated by Ishmael many years after the fact, I needed to change the dynamic of the story so that we\u2019re watching Ishmael get on that boat as the only person who\u2019s never been on a whaleboat before. This is why I call him Greenhorn. And we\u2019re watching him as he\u2019s taking in everything that happens\u2014and ultimately, we watch him take on various perspectives on how to live one\u2019s life. So my first decision, made together with Jake, was to make the first line of the book the last line of the opera, with the idea that since Ishmael has had this experience, which we\u2019ve shared with him, he can go off now and tell the story. At the end of the opera, when the captain asks him, \u201cWho are you?\u201d he says, \u201cCall me Ishmael.\u201d I really wanted to tell the story in what I call \u201creal time,\u201d not as a memory someone was narrating. Then you can see things come to life. I wanted the audience to watch it all just take place, to watch Ishmael experience this adventure, which, again, prepares him to be able to tell the story of how his life changed.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I noticed that the stage directions seem to do more work in this libretto than in others I\u2019ve read, possibly because there\u2019s so much action in the novel and thus the opera. How did you distill the narrative into those directions?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

There were many more stage directions in earlier drafts. When this process started\u2014and this is what I normally do\u2014I wrote a forty-to-fifty-page treatment, which no one ever saw, of how the opera would unfold. And then I got that down to fifteen pages, which the composer saw, and then ten pages, which the dramaturge, Leonard Foglia, saw. It ultimately wound up being seven or eight pages and served as an outline for the work that I ended up doing later. But it started with a forty-to-fifty-page account of how each of these moments would unfold.<\/p>\n

For instance, early in the opera, after Ahab has rallied the crew to hunt down Moby-Dick, they take their harpoons and drink out of them, as they do in the book. Starbuck, the first mate, gets this young Greenhorn-Ishmael character and instructs him on his duties as a tub-oarsman in a whaleboat. But while he\u2019s explaining, he becomes so overwhelmed with thinking about the possibility of not seeing his children again, and what\u2019s at stake here, that he hands off the responsibility to Queequeg. Then Queequeg and Ishmael continue, and their relationship develops. None of that is in the text of the libretto, or the stage directions, but I wrote it down before I began.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Some of the text of the libretto comes directly from the novel. How did you approach that assemblage of Melville\u2019s work and yours?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

If there was any text that I could use from the book, I would use it. Sometimes I would use a key phrase from the book and then write around it. And in other places, there are long passages that are just really edited down from the book. Sometimes I changed certain things and kept others. In the first act, when the crew first sees a pod of whales and Ahab refuses to lower the whaleboats Moby-Dick isn\u2019t among them\u2014that\u2019s not in the book. But it\u2019s a way of distilling the conflict between Ahab\u2019s desires to kill Moby-Dick and the crew\u2019s desires to make money. Later, Starbuck says, Look, these guys have to earn some cash. There\u2019s going to be a mutiny if you don\u2019t allow them to go. And so Ahab says, \u201cThey pant like dogs for cash.\u201d This draws from a line in the novel, about how “cash would soon cashier Ahab.” I used that line as a point of departure. It\u2019s like when you throw a stone into a pond. But one of the things that\u2019s so profound about Moby-Dick<\/em>, is that when you drop the stone into the pond, it ripples out in an asymmetric way. Certain things are highlighted and certain other things aren\u2019t. So the cetology, the history of whaling, all the stuff that is woven into the text of the novel\u2014I\u2019m trying to get that feel, all while telling this story of adventure and story of conflict that happens if you try to control the world, which ultimately is beyond anyone\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How did your collaboration with Jake Heggie work in this instance?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

Our collaboration mirrored what has been traditional in opera\u2014the writing happened first. When you think of La boh\u00e8me<\/em>, for example, that libretto was written completely before the music was composed. It took two years to write it, and Puccini was very demanding of the two guys who were writing it, but he didn\u2019t really compose the music until it was done. That\u2019s what happened here as well. I did my six months of\u2014call it research. I had notes, which I shared with Jake, about how the story might unfold, and then we went to the Nantucket Whaling Museum together, and we started talking more about it. Then I wrote a draft of the opera libretto, which I shared with Jake, two or three scenes at a time, to get his input. Things changed based on the back-and-forth between us. And then when we had a draft done, we shared it with the dramaturge, Lenny, and we met in San Francisco at Jake\u2019s studio, the three of us, and just went through it, dramatic beat by dramatic beat.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Tell me a bit about the visit to the Nantucket Whaling Museum. What were you looking for there?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

It really was a pivotal moment. I had done my due diligence and read lots of books on whaling. I read a fantastic book from the late forties, probably the most important book I read, called The Trying-out of Moby-Dick<\/em> by Howard Vincent, about the sources Melville assembled in order to write the novel. But there\u2019s something about being in the museum and seeing the models and the actual whale boats. There were so many things that found their way into the opera based on that visit. And one, which was absolutely crucial, happened when I was looking at a model of a whaling ship. I saw that there are three mastheads with crow\u2019s nests. I had just missed this in my reading. I assumed that there was one guy or two guys on a single masthead who would be on lookout. But there were three. And then I thought, Oh my God. Queequeg gets sick on the ship and has Ishmael make a coffin because he assumes he\u2019ll die. I knew he had to get sick, but I didn\u2019t know when. Looking at this model, I saw what would happen if these two close friends were on two mastheads when Queequeg gets sick, and Ishmael is unable to reach him because he is on the other masthead. It was a very theatrical way of depicting what\u2019s happening. Imagine two close friends, and one of them is going to fall off the masthead because he is convulsed with pain, and his friend is unable to help him. It\u2019s a very dramatic point of departure, even without words.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

We keep returning to the challenge of dramatization without language. How do you think about that when writing a libretto?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

Ironically, the art form that opera has the most in common with is silent film. In silent films, the gestures are so much larger than in later films. The subtlety in a silent film comes principally from the cinematography. With opera, it\u2019s very similar. Think of the operatic gesture, the broad dramatic gesture. In the opening act of La boh\u00e8me<\/em>, Mimi is coming up the stairs, holding an unlit candle. And Rodolfo sees her and lights the candle, and then she drops her key on the floor. He takes the key and puts it in his pocket, because he doesn\u2019t want her to go, and then he pretends to be looking for the key, and he takes her hand. All of that is part of the libretto, not part of the staging. Then Rodolfo sings, \u201cChe gelida manina,\u201d or \u201cHow cold your little hand is.\u201d He sings the aria, but everything is set up by the action I just described. You can imagine that in a silent film all of this could happen without any words\u2014a person comes up to get her candle lit, the guy sees her, she drops the keys on the floor, everything.<\/p>\n

With the silent film as my North Star in a way, I was imagining Ishmael-Greenhorn on top of one mast, Queequeg on top of the other, and Queequeg gets deathly sick, and he\u2019s reaching out for Ishmael-Greenhorn. You see Ahab on the deck saying, \u201cHold your post; don\u2019t come down.\u201d And Ishmael-Greenhorn says, \u201cBut my friend.\u201d All of this could happen with almost no text, just with pictures, right? If you look at every scene in Moby-Dick<\/em>, you really could break it down as a silent film. That\u2019s part of writing the action for the libretto. Then, of course, the magic sauce is the music. In the end, the subtlety and depth opera comes from the music, and my job is to set it up so that the music can win the day. That\u2019s what cinematography does for a silent film, and what music does for opera.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

You also wrote an adaptation of Michael Chabon\u2019s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.<\/em> Did you approach the scenes in a similar way?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

It was a very similar process, with a similar but unique challenge. I was overwhelmed with the task of Kavalier & Clay<\/em>, in a way even more so than with Moby-Dick<\/em>. It\u2019s true that Moby-Dick<\/em> is a very long novel, and yes, a very profound and deep novel, and there\u2019s a lot about portraying whale hunts and so forth that is challenging, but the story is very concentrated. It\u2019s very focused. The whale bites the guy\u2019s leg off, and he wants to get revenge, you know? The challenge with Kavalier & Clay<\/em>, right from the get-go, was the length of time that the story takes to unfold. I had to be very bold in terms of compressing it, because I didn\u2019t want to tell a story that took place over fifteen years. The story in the libretto takes place over four years or so. And once you change that one thing, you change lots of things. So it required not just cutting but also finding ways of reinventing the story.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How did you deal with that challenge of time?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

With Kavalier & Clay<\/em>, the big aha moment for me was to bring three different worlds to life, each of which had distinct musical styles, distinct looks, and distinct textures. First, there is the world of the Holocaust, the world of Europe. The composer Mason Bates and I brought this to life with a harsher tone that depicted what was going on in Europe in the thirties. And then when the protagonist, Joe, comes to New York after the war, it\u2019s the Superman<\/em> comic-book world, it\u2019s the Chrysler Building, it\u2019s the energy of these immigrants who are arriving. It\u2019s the Jazz Age. It\u2019s swing music and warmth and life and the energy that was going through the world, clearly in response to the war, but also just as part of America blooming into a new age. And then the third world was that of the art itself, the world of the comic-book characters that is being created by Joe and his cousin. Mason created this electro-infused musical style to animate that world. We have these three distinct musical and visual worlds, so that when Joe discovers that his sibling has perished and his entire family is gone, and he runs away from Rosa without any explanation because he\u2019s so distraught and lost, we have a way of depicting it by letting these three musical worlds collide. And that\u2019s what happens.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How do you think about your role in writing a libretto?<\/p>\n

SCHEER<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an old Spencer Tracy line\u2014he told Burt Reynolds, \u201cDon’t let them catch you acting.\u201d It\u2019s a bit like that with writing a libretto. The problem with many librettos, especially those written over the past thirty years or so, is that they depend too much on language to tell the story. They become scripts rather than librettos. And then you have a lot of words dancing on top of chords. That is not, I think, the most winning formula for writing a really compelling opera. What you want is to distill it down so that the music can really convey the emotional stakes, and the reality of these characters. Which is not to say a great turn of phrase can\u2019t be really important, and I hope I have been able to provide that in both of these pieces. But the thing that ultimately is going to dictate the power of these operas, or any opera, is how the music succeeds in telling the story. Because in the end, why sing? That\u2019s one of the big questions. Why are these people singing instead of speaking? And it\u2019s because they need music in order to express what\u2019s going on in their hearts and what\u2019s at stake in their lives. And that\u2019s why stakes are usually very high in operas\u2014so we have to distill whatever those are down into text, down into scenes, so that the music can be the marrow of the operatic experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sophie Haigney is <\/em>The Paris Review\u2019s web editor<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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