At age 67, Nicholas Maw is well and truly arriving as a composer. He
is already thoroughly established in his native England, having as champions
such high-powered performers as Simon Rattle and Joshua Bell. The latter made a
recording of Maw's Violin Concerto that won a Grammy Award in 2001; the former
premiered Maw's 96-minute orchestral work Odyssey with the City of
Birmingham Symphony in 1987, and the subsequent recording was cited as one of
the best of the decade by Classic CD magazine.
Now Maw is getting one of the ultimate establishment accolades: a world premiere at Covent Garden. His latest project is an opera based on William Styron's 1979 novel Sophie's Choice, a property made internationally famous by the 1982 film version starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. Commissioned by the BBC, Maw's opera debuts on 7 December 2002; its premiere, conducted by Rattle and directed by Trevor Nunn, is touted as the highlight of the Royal Opera season.
Though his music is known largely through the work of English performers, Maw spends most of his time in the United States, living in Washington, D.C. and teaching at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. andante contributor Gail Wein caught up with Maw as he swung through Washington on his way from the 2002 Aspen Music Festival to his country home in the south of France.
Gail Wein: What was the inception of Sophie's
Choice?
Nicholas Maw: The inception was about ten years ago, when I got the movie out of the local video store. I'd heard about it, and of course I knew about [author William] Styron; I saw the video and I was just stunned. I immediately felt that this would make the most remarkable opera subject matter.
The next day I rushed out and bought the novel. I sat down and read it straight through — it's a very large novel, as you know; I think it took me two or three days.
GW: What was it about the story that struck you?
NM: It deals with events which, while they aren't exactly contemporary,
still have an enormous effect on our lives. In a sense, they are
contemporary — the tragedies we see in the Middle East, the subject of
the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps and so forth. One of the reasons
that I was attracted to this was that I think it is difficult for 20th-century
opera composers to get hold of contemporary subject matter.
GW: What about the story impressed you as particularly operatic?
NM: The height of the tragedy. The fact that, in a way, the major characters in it were larger than life — as, in a sense, they have to be in opera, because they have to sing about everything. The characters encompass a universal tragedy in a way we can all relate to and which we immediately understand. We don't necessarily have sympathy with all of them but we understand them.
GW: You wrote the libretto yourself. Was that a difficult task for you? Have you written other libretti in the past?
NM: I have not written other libretti in the past, but I have been involved in writing libretti for my two previous operas. [Sophie's Choice] was a difficult task because the novel is on an enormous scale; if you're going to dramatize it, you have to get it down to about one-fifth the size. Then you have to write the text — the script, as it were. Of course you can't get all the text from the novel because there are various situations where you have to alter things; you have to add things from time to time. For example, there's a scene in a bar where Nathan, one of the characters, flies into a rage. In the novel, Styron describes other people in the bar reacting to him, but I had to write some verbal reactions, such as "What is this guy shouting about?" and so forth.
GW: Why did you decide to write the libretto yourself instead of hiring
another librettist to do it?
NM: I thought I could do it myself and I thought the novel would provide me with everything I needed.
I thought very carefully about how I wanted to organize the material dramatically, and I wrote a scenario. Then I contacted Mr. Styron and sent him a copy of this; I was thinking maybe he would be interested himself in writing the libretto. He said, no, he felt that the subject matter was quite some time behind him, that he couldn't get involved in it again. He said, why don't you just go ahead and do it yourself?
GW: You've written two other operas, as you've mentioned. They're both comic operas, but this is your first dramatic, serious opera. Is this the sort of genre that you've been wanting to do for a long time?
NM: Yes, indeed it is. It's rather odd that I started off by writing comedies; you have to take enormous risks in doing that. On the one hand, you don't want the comedy to be taken seriously — you want to enjoy it, after all, it is a comedy. On the other hand, you do want it to be taken seriously, but so often [comedy] is likely to be sort of "sniffed at" and not treated seriously at all.
GW: It can be problematic to work with opera companies — the personalities can be demanding. How involved are you in this production at the Royal Opera House?
NM: I made it quite clear to Covent Garden that I wished to be involved in the hiring of the cast, right from the beginning, and they have been extremely cooperative about this. We have a wonderful cast, I think.
GW: What were you looking for in the cast? Did you write the parts for specific singers?
NM: I wrote them for
specific voices, but not for specific persons. There's one person, who is going
to sing the central role of Sophie — this magnificent Austrian
mezzo-soprano, Angelika Kirchschlager. She's a brilliant actress as well as a
very fine singer. I knew that she was going to do the role when I was about
two-thirds of the way through writing the music.
Then there are the three male roles: the roles of the writer Stingo; Sophie's lover, the Jewish man Nathan who is really very mentally disturbed; and the narrator — they are, of course, all Americans. I made it quite clear to Covent Garden that I wanted American artists.
GW: When the production of Sophie's Choice happens in December, will you be at the rehearsals? Will you be sitting next to the director and helping to direct, or revising the score or the libretto?
NM: I will not be helping to direct [chuckles] — I shall be careful not to do that. Of course I shall make some suggestions — inevitably one does. I indeed will be at the rehearsals (but probably not for the very first ones). Certain people appreciate having the composer there simply to ask him questions — is it a B-flat or a B-natural? And, there have been some times [with] my previous operas when they've asked me questions about how I felt how certain characters should be presented.
GW: Did you have input into the sets?
NM: I have seen the models for the set, and I think that they're magnificent. The young designer Rob Howell has done a brilliant job. [The sets] have been very challenging to do, because there's not only a large number of them, but you have to spring from one totally different thing to another. Some scenes are flashbacks — going back to Poland in the 1930's, then to Brooklyn in 1947, then to a scene here in Washington in a hotel.
GW: You've had a longstanding relationship with Simon Rattle — tell
me about how that relationship developed before this project. I'm also curious
about what work you've done in the past with the director, Trevor
Nunn.
NM: I've never worked with Trevor Nunn before — in fact it was Simon Rattle who recommended him and persuaded him to do this; they have worked together on several operatic productions. As for Simon, he has actually conducted one work of mine, but it's one of my works on a larger scale, an orchestra piece called Odyssey. That is a piece which actually needs a conductor at that level to make it work — so, of course, I shall be grateful to him for the rest of my life for what he did for me on that occasion.
When it was put to him about conducting [Sophie's Choice], he was immediately interested in the idea because he's always thought of me as being somebody who produces things on a very large scale. Some of his most remarkable performances have been very large-scale works. So there's no question about it, he will be the ideal conductor for this.
GW: You wrote this opera on commission from the Royal Opera House. How did that commission come about?
NM: I'm extraordinarily fortunate in that the opera is being promoted now by two of the most powerful musical organizations in England, namely the BBC and Covent Garden.
It came about because, after I had written the scenario, I contacted Covent Garden on the advice of my publisher and asked them whether they were interested in it. They said no, they were not. I was immediately depressed, and dropped the subject. Then I received a telephone call from my publisher, who told me that the regime of Covent Garden had totally changed; she thought that it would be appropriate to try again. She absolutely insisted, and I'm very grateful to her that she did.
In fact the commission was a part of a BBC Millennium project which broadcast what they considered to be the significant music of England of the 20th century. It was initially supposed to happen before the end of 2000, but for various reasons it was not possible to do [the opera] before then.
GW: You basically live in the United States now, but when I mentioned your name to someone at the American Music Center, the reaction was, "Oh, but he's British." In England do you get the reaction of "Oh, he's really American now"?
NM: It's interesting
you should say that, because I do feel that I've had a problem with this.
Because, as with everything in life, it does depend on personal contact, the
fact that you're actually there. There's no question in my mind, for example, if
I had been born in [the United States] and lived here in my youth, it would be
much easier for me to get performances in this country. There are so many
organizations here who, when they are doing contemporary work of any kind, will
only do American work.
GW: Are you happy with what you've achieved so far, with your level of success as a composer?
NM: I think that, like anybody else who is involved in creative activity,
inevitably you're happy with certain things and some things you're less happy
with. And there are still many things I wish to do. One thing that has always
motivated me in my creative life is that I never liked doing the same thing
again. For example, I'm very happy about the fact that when I finish the opera,
I shall be writing a piece of chamber music, something totally different
— I find that very, very stimulating. It's almost as though you are
walking into another world.
