Crime writers who turn to opera

It seems I'm not the first crime writer to turn his hand to writing a libretto. Apparently, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith have also had a go, as I discovered from this article in The Times.

Is there something about writing crime fiction that makes us especially qualified for the task, I wonder?

Without wanting to appear either pretentious or glib - though aware that I will probably come across as both - I wonder if it is something to do with a preoccupation with death. I sometimes feel when I'm writing my Porfiry books that the whole thing is really a way of confronting death, facing up to it. This happens literally, of course, when the detective, and the reader, is presented with a corpse. And I, as the writer, have to look that corpse in the face and try to describe what I see - or rather imagine.

I also have the sense that I'm trying to beguile death with my writing, or win her over. I want to show her that I'm on her side. Up to a point of course. In the hope, perhaps, that she will spare me, though I know she never will.

Yes, I give death a feminine aspect, following Cocteau. She is the Princess, the mysterious visitor who steps through the mirror in Orphee.

Death is present in all the best operas too. But maybe in a different way. Many are structured around the death of the central character. Death is still beguiled, but this time by song. And rather than being a confrontation, they are a distraction - for her and for us.

The drama both brings about the heroine's death, and keeps it at bay, at least until the final act. And in the meantime the opera says to death: Wait a while before you do your work, and listen to the song.

Armando Iannucci, librettist

I heard on Radio 4 the other day that the comedy genius Armando Iannucci has "written an opera", as they put it, although as he himself admits, he has actually provided the words. The composer is David Sawer. Traditionally, an opera is the composer's piece, and it is the composer's name that is associated with it. The librettist does not usually get a look in. It's Verdi's La Traviata, not Piave's. But the Today Programme package I listened to failed to even mention the composer's name. Skin Deep, we were told, is a new opera by Armando Iannucci. I wonder how David Sawer feels about that!

I haven't seen it yet, though I am hoping to do so soon, when it transfers down to London. I was very interested to read this article by Iannucci about the process in The Times. As I've also written a libretto for an opera, I identified with a lot that he said, particularly this:

Somebody asked me to write an opera. I wasn’t expecting that. Being asked to write an opera is like being asked to demolish a power station or go in a rocket with Al Pacino: it’s not something you’d ever expect to do in your lifetime. You’ve got to say “yes” no matter the amount of trepidation that soon follows once you’ve agreed.

This too struck a chord:

it’s always a useful constraint on the ego to wallow in a line you’ve written only to be told that it needs to be four syllables shorter. You realise that you are there to service the music, not the other way round. Your words are like costume and scenery; part of a larger experience.

I would add that it is an amazing experience to hear words you've written set to music by a brilliant composer and sung by fantastically talented singers. It's an enormous privilege that's strangely humbling too.

And as an extra treat, here's a clip from Armando Iannucci's previous operatic work, Ibiza Uncovered: The Opera

In rehearsal

This week I'm spending my days in Bethnal Green, at The People Show Studios. We're workshopping the opera Ed Hughes and I have written. He did the music - I did the words, just in case you were wondering. And thankfully, people other than me are doing the singing.

The workshop is being run by Opera Genesis, which is an initiative run by Royal Opera House. Our opera, Cocteau in the Underworld(scroll down after clicking for info), has been commissioned by The Brighton Festival.

It's pretty bloody mind-blowing to have people singing your words, that's all I can say! And I turned up today to discover a set had taken shape. Also mind-blowing.

We're working towards putting on a performance for an invited audience on Friday. Not a lot of time. But the performers are brilliant and the director (John Lloyd Davies) is a genius. So, we shall see. In the meantime, I'm having a great time!

London weighting?

I had to travel to Brighton yesterday for a meeting about the opera. Being a man of a certain age I found I needed to use the loo when I arrived at Brighton Station. If only I'd gone on the train (oh, wait - I did) because it cost 20p to take a leak.

Daylight robbery, I thought. Until later in the afternoon when I arrived back at Victoria Station and found myself once again needing to take a leak. The cost of urination in London turned out to be 30p.

They must think Londoners are made of money.

The meeting took all morning and I went to the toilet twice. It was free.

We did drink a lot of coffee is my excuse.

The general view is that the libretto draft that I have provided will generate between two and half and three hours of stage time. As we were aiming for around 80-90 minutes, there will obviously have to be some cuts. I'm fine with that. The only problem is that Ed Hughes, the composer, is reluctant to lose a single word!

500 bastard words...

... into my new work and I'm struck by the thought that it's a lot easier to read a book than write one.

You can see by looking at the post below that it was - let's see, when was it? - exactly a week ago that I was boasting about starting the bloody thing. 500 words in one week. Works out at about seventy words a day. Not a great rate. I will certainly have to pick up the pace if I hope to finish it anywhere near the agreed deadline (June 1st 2009).

To tell the truth, I have made progress, even if it hasn't resulted in a great flood of words. I realised that I didn't have the opening right. Or to put it another way, I'd got it wrong. But at least I could see it. And now I think I've sorted it. I have a crucial aspect of the opening pinned. I know where my character is, and what he can see, and how he feels. I also know, more or less, what's going to happen to him. And I think I know why. Hey, all I have to do is write the thing.

I was gently chastised by a fellow writer at the weekend for my lack of focus. He asked the question, "Don't you worry about focus?" Yes, I do, actually. Very much.

Aside from writing the novel, I'm also working on the libretto for an opera. That is the project I mentioned in a mysterious way some weeks ago. Things have been notched up a serious level or two in that, and now it seems that I may be called upon to provide some words for the thing. I think I may have until the end of May to do that. Can't quite remember exactly what I agreed to. Thing is, people seem to be acting as though it has some chance of being produced.

Then every day my kids remind me that I started writing a story for them. And demand another chapter.

Oh, and I also agreed to contribute something to The Abstracta Project. What is The Abstracta Project, I hear you ask? Well, it's going to be a novel, or a something, constructed out of "found texts", the contributions of a number of writers working independently, which the entity that is "The Abstracta Project" will stitch together into whatever it ends up being. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Which is precisely why I wanted to take part.

So far, to my knowledge, the following writers have agreed to contribute:

Steven Hall
Carlton Mellick III
Ray Robinson
D. Harlan Wilson
Ben Myers

And me, of course. I sent my fragment in today. The Abstracta Project (the name of the person, or persons, behind it is unknown to me) seemed very pleased with it. It will be interesting to see how this shapes up.

Now then, where was I on the novel? Focus. Must focus.

WSJ? Whassa' then?

My US editor emailed me with news of, in his words, a "fantastic review in the WSJ". Naturally, I was pleased. Any good review is gratifying. Though I did have to admit I had no idea what the WSJ is. I was rather embarrassed to learn that it's The Wall Street Journal. Somehow, I feel I ought to have been able to work that out.

I haven't seen the whole review and I can't find it online (think you have to be a subscriber). But here's the quote that Scott sent me:

"English writer R. N. Morris has produced perhaps the most audacious police-inspector novel of the season with "The Gentle Axe."....The tale hums along with controlled excitement, as if written by a Russian minimalist and rendered by a fine translator. The psychological and spiritual themes seem worthy of Dostoyevsky; there are traces of Gogol and Gorky, too. Such an accomplished book transcends pastiche."

In other news

Last week (I think it was last week - no maybe it was two weeks ago!) I went to see a screening of Strike, the 1924 silent movie by Eisenstein, at the Barbican. It was being shown with a new sound track by my friend Ed Hughes. It was a wonderful experience and Ed's music was fantastic. The dvd is going to be released by Tartan Video on July 16th. It will also contain Battleship Potemkin, also with a new soundtrack by Ed, and a propaganda film called October, which does not have Ed's music on it.

I've also made a short (very short!) film which uses Ed's music. It's the following trailer for my novel Taking Comfort.

taking comfort

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Ed contacted me this week to let me know that a project we worked on many years ago, a short one-act opera called The Devil's Drum, is going to get a new performance. It has been picked up by a young director called Poppy Burton-Morgan and she is putting on a production at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, on Monday August 20th. I'm very excited about that, as there is nothing quite like the thrill of live performance.

Oh, yes, almost forgot... an old story of mine, called 'The Tender-hearted Man', has been published in Libbon, the short story magazine. My thanks to the editor David Soulsby, for picking it out.