The Moon Moth

Opera in Two Acts

MUSIC BY ROBERT PATERSON • LIBRETTO BY JOHN DE LOS SANTOS

Written: In-Development
Duration: ca. 90'
Based on the novella The Moon Moth by Jack Vance; libretto by John de los Santos
for five singers and sinfonietta (two sopranos, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, 2 percussionists, keyboard/piano, 2 violins, viola, cello, bass. NOTE: four of the instrumentalist performers will function onstage as musician-actors.)
Upcoming World Premiere: TBD
Publisher: Bill Holab Music | Underlying rights granted via the Jack Vance Estate and Spatterlight Press, LLC

Brief Description

Hailed as one of Jack Vance's greatest sci-fi stories, The Moon Moth tells the tale of an unsolved murder on a distant planet involving a consul from Earth and mysterious aliens who communicate via singing and playing musical instruments, and who wear masks to indicate social status.

LIBRETTIST’S STATEMENT

Jack Vance’s 1961 short story is a masterful exploration of the complex implications and universal power of language. Vance’s vision of an extraterrestrial world populated by a caste species (Sirenese) who utilize music and masks to communicate and convey social status is still fascinating and ultramodern to twenty-first-century readers. In an earthbound society where technology (and most recently, masks) tells us as much about the people we interact with as words, The Moon Moth holds a prophetic relevance uniquely ripe for a new adaptation.

Composer Robert Paterson and librettist/director John de los Santos have devised an unconventional operatic concept to create a new version of the tale. Vance invented no fewer than eleven alien instruments in his text, and Paterson plans to use his expertise as a percussionist to experiment with building completely new instruments inspired by those in the story, either designed by Paterson or in collaboration with another instrument builder. De los Santos’ libretto will stipulate that the five earthling characters will sing to one another in English, but whenever communicating with the Sirenese beings, will solely use these new instruments (all instrumental lines will be translated to the audience via the supertitles). The Sirenese would therefore be played by onstage (and mobile) members of the orchestra. The main design element will naturally be the elaborate masks, with a staging influenced in part by ancient Greek drama and contemporary dance. The aim of the diverse creative team will be to break new dramatic and orchestral ground while remaining true to the singular conceits of the classic source.

COMPOSER’S STATEMENT

After reading Vance’s The Moon Moth, it was clear to me that this story would make an innovative and truly fantastic opera. Based on my background as a composer of operatic and instrumental works, a percussionist, and an instrument builder, and John’s background as a librettist, a stage director and a choreographer, we believe that we are the ideal creators to bring this story to life.

My goal is to create a musical landscape that evokes the alien world described in the story, including instrumental parts for the Sirenese that approximate the eleven instruments Vance describes in his story. Additionally, I plan on tying the characters to the music and various emotions depicted in the story via leitmotifs, whether melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, or timbral.

Vance goes into great detail describing the alien instruments and musical material the characters play, and everyone in the story communicates via singing and/or these instruments. Many of these instruments can be modeled after existing “Earthly” instruments—the “Ganga” can be modeled after a zither, for example—yet others may need to be designed completely from scratch.

For original instrument ideas, I plan on drawing inspiration from the instruments in the story and also inventors such as Harry Partch (who himself was a California native and who was born in Oakland, CA, where Vance lived), and possibly others, such as J.C. Deagan and Adolphe Sax. Detailed directions will be created for the design of these instruments in the event that they are lost or damaged and need to be re-created, and at the later date, alternative parts for more traditional or easy-to-find instruments will also be created in the event that the instruments are not available.

The ensemble for this production will be modeled after a sinfonietta (a small orchestra with single winds, brass, strings, keyboard, and percussion), with the addition of one extra percussionist. The percussion instrumentation will be a mix of traditional and exotic non-Western instruments. The keyboard player will likely play a synthesizer in order to have access to a myriad of otherworldly, non-Western sounds. All of the performers will utilize extended techniques in order to produce sounds, timbres, scales and harmonic material that are not typical of traditional, Western-style classical ensembles.