hello and welcome to Prime Time.

I'm Bruce Haines.

What do Manches University music students a Metropolitan Opera stage director, the Manchester Symphony Orchestra and a rock musician turned composer have in common?

Well, the answer is the national collegiate premiere of The Invention of Moral and Opera by Stuart Copeland which can be seen this Sunday at 2:00 on PBS Fort Wayne tonight will share a preview of this performance.

We'll also talk with composer Stuart Copeland and met opera director Kathleen Belcher.

And first we welcome Deborah Lin, director of choral organizations at Manchester University and the musical director for The Invention of Moral.

>> Good evening, Deborah .

Hello.

I'm great.

You it seems like a lot of things that you know, they say one of these things is not like the other and a lot of these things don't look like they would necessarily.

But this case it all worked out.

How did North Manchester Manchester University, Wabash County become the collegiate stage debut for for this for this production?

>> Well, I am typically the opera director at Manchester University and we don't usually when we're choosing repertoire it takes us a little time.

>> You don't just decide, oh, I'm going to do this next week and with operas it takes usually a year or two to plan and so in twenty eighteen I was thinking about what I might do in 2020 and and I had a very special convergence of talent coming up that I knew I would have of students who were interested in opera careers and so I wanted to bring Kathleen Belcher.

I'd wanted to work with her for a while.

She's the spouse of one of my college cronies and and he's a singer and he's been saying you need to work with Kathleen, you need to work with Kathleen.

>> So so we've wanted to do that for a while and one of her specialties is new operas or doing modernized renditions of of more traditional repp.

And so I wanted to bring her out and so I started looking for a new opera and I really wanted my students to have the specific challenge of learning something had no references so only the score they're so used to learning things by looking it up on YouTube or finding a recording and it's a really valuable experience for a musician to only take what's on the page and and interpret it themselves.

>> So I wanted them to have that experience and I also thought it would be great to have the experience of working with something by a living composer.

>> So I've loved Stuart's work for many, many years.

His film scores are brilliant and aside from being a police fan there's so much more there from him.

>> So I looked up an opera that I had heard about that he had composed and just premiered in Chicago the year before that in twenty seventeen and this invention of moral and got a perusal score from the publisher and wow it just blew me away.

I loved the music but as I was playing through it at the piano I got around to the end of it and I was crying because it was so beautiful and the themes were so compelling and I thought I just have to do this piece.

So that's how it started.

I contacted Kathleen.

She thought it sounded great.

I contacted Stuart's agent on a whim.

He probably won't be interested.

>> Guess what he was so here we are but it's phenomenal.

It really and it's sort of a back to the future thing because so many know the name Stuart Copeland as the co-founder of the police and of course drummer as well for the great English rock band .

>> But since those days Stuart has been scoring, as you said, music for films Wall Street talk radio, TV shows like The Equalizer and Babylon five and even video games like Spyro the Dragon which made me smile in recent years he's turned to writing operas in fact the invention of Morella's Copelands Fifth Opera.

>> So with his success across all other musical outlets, we asked composer Stuart Copeland why opera?

Well, opera is the obvious destination of all of those things because it brings them all together in film composing which is closely related, which is music interacting with drama.

The director is the artist and the the humble composer is just a craftsman serving the artistic foibles of the director who is the artist in this case in TV the writer the guy writing the story gets the call the shot an opera composer is boss which makes it OK.

It's not as lucrative as Broadway or TV or film but it's the central for the music to be the center of the artistic enterprise is very exciting for a composer.

>> That's why we like it well and for taking something as intricate as the invention of moral as opera number five it should be noted.

So for other achievements going into this one, how did you stumble across Adolfo Casares?

>> My son gave me this slim science fiction romance a comedic science fiction romance ,a period comedic science fiction romance, a fair volume of all of that stuff and I was in fact the storyline is very clear the emotional impact of the novel is very profound and this is what we look for in opera is the emotional charge and so tune into that one with great relief.

>> Yeah, I was just going through with all of that going for it it must be the composer's happy dilemma too to find a way to express all that musically.

>> Well yes there is technique that you pick up along the way since Morrel I've actually done two more operas and it's always learning, learning, learning the human voices.

>> Each one is different but to just write so that anyone can sing it as a learning learning process but that's just a technique the actual music, the inspiration part, the reason what you apply all that technique to that is a gift.

It is a river that flows.

It just it just comes and the sensation is not so much of creating something as discovering something, you know, OK, it comes to you and then to create it on the page or in a recording or to bring it into the material world by its creation.

But the inspiration it comes from a higher place.

>> You and your coordinator Jonathan Moore, we're doing some creation too in a higher place taking the story line and moving it up a few decades from the 1920s I believe to somewhere in the 1960s.

>> Why the science of this terrific novel is inadequate to modern sensibility the story, the emotional arc, the characters, everything fantastic the science part of it for the invention nobody's going to believe that.

>> So I had to go to very solid Star Wars technology that everybody understands and believes.

>> Beam me up Scotty.

We all know that that's true and it works deep down.

>> Yeah, right.

And so I used that technology as the as the scientific device in morale because it just has more gravitas.

>> It has more solidity.

It's an accredited love it and when this all had its national premiere, it was a co premier with Long Beach Opera and the Chicago Opera Theater.

What was it like for you to work with the collegiate premier here with the music department at Manchester University, the students, the orchestra?

>> Well, tell me about that.

Well, that's always a lot more fun.

I did it with the grown up professionals.

It's very serious and everyone's very committed.

The result is very beautiful but I've always had a great ride with students because they they have more time to rehearse.

They can put more of their time in IT professionals you get your slot and that's it.

But students they can live in it.

They study, they do homework on it.

They get much deeper into it and what they might lack in professional chops they make up for in enthusiasm and time spent perfecting.

>> Yeah, you were singing along the way too in another interview about the time this opera premiered that all of the time with film and TV and video has taught you how to find your voice for your story.

>> Tell me about some of the other things that now you're giving voice to.

Well, opera is the main thing that I do these days.

I'm also doing a show with where I do police songs with a big orchestra and that's another thing kind of going on.

But operatically and the way drama works with music is very profound and interest Stingley I discovered twenty years before the mask is a hired gun flinty eyed film composer you want happy I'll give you a happy you want happy sad which way around sad happy or happy sad.

>> You know the really interesting thing is that all that content is true.

People emotionally believe the music before their lying eyes the handsome Tom Cruise looks into her eyes as I love you.

He's lit beautifully.

He's handsome as all get out.

But the audience needs to know that he's a lying son of a and the music tells him that their eyes tell him tell the audience that he's good.

The music that minor says don't believe a word he says and as a film composer are fond of saying Who are you going to believe your lying eyes or my mind chord rock musician turned to operatic composer Stuart Copeland.

>> I'm with Develin, the director the music department at Manchester University and lots of energy there.

No wonder it would translate across multiple operas and film scores and television.

>> He was getting into the suburbs of the storyline.

>> Tell us about the invention of morale as a story.

Oh well I don't want to give too much away no spoilers but it's it's sort of a time machine kind of a thing like you said and there are several characters what's really challenging about the story is that they're everybody's in the same place but they're there in different times and at the center of all of this is a woman who is has a love interest in one in her own time .

But one of the characters in a different time falls in love with her and he can see her but she can't see him because they're in different times.

So that's where the love interest thing comes from and and all the science comes from.

And there are two characters that are the same person so they look alike but so that's a little was a little bit challenging to deal with as well.

But they are in one time one of them's telling the story, the other's living the story and then there are all these other characters who can't see them.

>> And so in staging the story and bringing in Kathleen Smith Belcher to help direct the movements, the blocking and so on blazing new trails here.

>> Yes.

Yes.

And and that's I learned so much just working with her as a director myself.

It was such an honor for me to be able to just prepare the music and let her do do the staging work because normally I have to do both.

And so it was really fascinating to just be able to sit back and watch her process .

In fact we had a place in a little speed bump in our production during tech week with a costume issue that forced us just pitch all the costumes that had been prepared for over a year and have to drop back and punt and do something else threw us into a completely all those characters a different time and so we had to do this shift last minute and it shifted everybody somebody ended up being a priest that's not in the script and a few other things but watching her do that, you know, just scratch her head for about four seconds and then OK, we're going to do this and I was awestruck.

>> So you know, this is an amazing professionalism that that you don't get every day.

>> And would we be just a little closer to annexing New York City?

We could be watching her work with opera because this is where she's been.

She is in her 20th year in fact as a member of the Metropolitan Opera staff.

She collaborates on that opera live in HD broadcasts.

She works with many leading opera companies in the US and as we're learning Kathleen Smith Belcher came to Indiana to work with Deborah Lynn and Stewart Copeland and the university students and the orchestra and all of that and certainly to make the trek and to do the project it raises the question what in particular interested her about working on the invention of Querelle?

>> Let's listen.

Well, there are a couple of things.

First of all, it was Stewart Copeland, OK?

He was the drummer for the police and as a as a teenager I loved the police so I was intrigued with the whole idea of working with star number one and the story is fascinating.

The book that it's based on is an amazing science fiction novella that I was really interested in trying to bring to the stage.

It has had a lot of challenges built in just because of the nature of the piece and I really wanted to see if I could try and jump those hurdles and luckily Deborah Lynn gave me the opportunity and the the the support both musically and from mission standpoint to to put this piece together.

>> And it was it was a very exciting opportunity I think for everybody.

>> Is it easier to approach an opera that's having a premiere rather than an opera that's more familiar to an audience where folks can become watching with certain expectations for what the they believe those B C?

>> That's a really good question.

I think I think as a as an artist as a director in particular, it's more challenging to do a brand new piece or a piece that's less familiar for me anyway even if it's a piece that I know really well like BOEM I I don't I don't watch other productions in advance.

>> I try to just listen and see images of my own.

But the nice thing about those those pieces that are in existence is you can sort of look back to the past to see how other people have handled challenges of the piece.

>> This is totally different.

There's there is no no guidance.

So for me that was extra challenging as far as an audience goes.

I think it's I think it's really exciting because they walk in without all the baggage, if you will, that comes with again like a la BOEM we've heard umpteen recordings and have seen several different productions.

>> We sort of have expectations about what it should look like that I think is quite freeing for an audience member now behind the scenes, what is it like when you're miles away from North Manchester and Wabash County and you're in Indiana two weeks before the premiere but there's still a lot of communication that has to go on.

How was how was the long distance directing, if you will accomplish with the text there?

>> Well, it's luckily even though it was preplanned, we still had zoo meetings.

So who knew that it would it sort of be a launch pad into what the next year was going to be like?

But we had multiple phone meetings and research and we use Pinterest a lot actually to put together an inspiration board so that everybody can take a look at what images are inspiring both me or the other designers.

And so we sort of collaborated that way and had fun phone meetings for to talk about logistics.

>> It was the opera's very complicated in that there are a large number of scenes.

>> So it was tricky for us to try and figure out how we were going to show these scenes on stage.

And so we talked a lot about logistics basically in advance to help it be easier later on.

>> You've worked with artists very accomplished individuals.

Here comes a certain cast.

They want to be very accomplished and many of them of course are.

But what is that difference like in working at the college level?

>> I love working with young singers.

Absolutely love it not only does it help keep me think and energized about the art but students are so willing to take risks in a rehearsal room that maybe more established artists aren't willing to do for whatever reason they're there more the students seem to be more open to crazy ideas right off the bat and this is a big generalization but it just it feels like it's a little more there's more willingness to take big risks and explore creatively if that makes any sense whatsoever.

>> And now with the opera in hindsight and it's now out for others to study and to perform, what's the what was the experience like then the university working with Stewart Copeland brand new material taken together.

>> What were your takeaways from it all?

I it was a piece that DeBelin will laugh but it was a piece that definitely grew on me it didn't like grabbed me right out of the gate but the more I worked on it the more I really appreciate and love it.

>> I enjoyed being in North Manchester that everybody was so kind and so supportive especially since it was pre pandemic and we were just sort of starting to see what was going on in the rest the world.

It was nice to be in a safe secluded spot where I felt that we were all working together but helping each other get through the emotional parts of the opera.

But what was going on emotionally with everything else in the world?

It's definitely an experience I'll never forget because of all those things compiled together.

>> Metropolitan Opera stage director Kathleen Smith, Belcher and you have it's sort of the full in the fullness of time it all came together and the it again is the invention of Merril an opera by story Copeland performed by the University of Manchester Music Department, the Manchester Symphony Orchestra you'll be able to enjoy this Sunday afternoon at two on PBS Fort Wayne and you can enjoy a little bit of it now tell us about what we're going to see.

>> Well, as I said before, some of the characters are the characters are in two different times.

So one of the challenges for the actors is that even though they're all on stage with each other and they have to avoid bumping into each other, they can't directly look at each other all the time.

So the thing that clues the audience into the fact that they are in two different times is the fact that one group is completely ignoring the other group and but the scene that you're going to see now is the one time in the opera when they do interact with each other and it's a dream scene.

So the fugitive and the narrator, the two guys that are the same person and the fugitive is having a dream and in this dream he's dreaming that the other characters are interacting with him, the people that he can see but can't see him.

So it's an it's a one time in the whole opera and it's kind of the centerpiece where everybody can finally look at each other and interact.

>> Let's take a look.

Hi.

We spend I collapse into a dream.

>> Hi.

Dreamed of Faustin .

You?

>> I'm here for I don't meet my boy here for you but no I gotta go and now look at me quoting obscure poetry then French an excerpt from The Invention of Moral.

The follow up are coming your way this Sunday afternoon at two on PBS Fort Wayne so much to come together.

>> What are your takeaways from this experience?

>> It probably seems like only yesterday it's just really I think the connections that we can make the music world is so small really that and it's a universal language and so even though we had these disparate elements a person from New York and a rock star and all of this stuff we could all communicate on on this same level and we're all still working.

Stuart and I have collaborated we've become commentors.

We send compositions back and forth now Kathleen and I are good friends and we're you we're talking about future projects together and so and the students are have benefited from this.

Everybody walks away with a win and a music can do that.

>> It's an incredible experience for them.

Certainly building resumes before graduation.

>> That's tremendous.

Deborah Lynn is the chair of the music department at Manchester University.

There is a way for you to find out more about the school not too far away and the phone number as well.

And again, the invention of Moral Sunday afternoon at 2:00 here on PBS Fort Wayne.

I'm Bruce Haines for all of us with Prime Time.

>> Thank you so much for watching.

Take care and we'll see you again, sir.

Good night