Michael James Oberhauser

I've taken a little break from composing since my last blog entry... but I haven't really been relaxing.

School started back up for me this past Monday. I'm TAing two classes: Music Fundamentals and Ear Training 1. I'm also taking 9 credits of classes and lessons. I also helped out with an architecture class: I met with a few students to help them translate the ideas of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring into the concept of a design for a home. On top of all that, I've been working to get Magnum Opus off the ground.

I still haven't found a theater for Magnum Opus, but I have an audition time set up (see the "Magnum Opus info" page about that), and I found an accompanist for the audition named Amy. She's a new graduate student in the music program at Catholic and I'm really excited to work with her.

Whew... that's it for now. Back to writing a syllabus and lesson planning for my classes.

Well, just the first draft. The entire piece clocks in at 57 minutes and 54 seconds, as of right now. I'm sure it'll get longer- but it's hard to tell, it might even get shorter, with recitatives and whatnot.

So what's next? Well, I've been listening to musicals all day- specifically I Love You Because, In Trousers, The Last Five Years, March of the Falsettos, and, currently, Merrily We Roll Along. I'm getting prepared to change gears a bit and write some children's musical theater songs, with texts by my good friend Amanda, that all have to do with the Cinderella story. I'll let you know how they go when I'm done with them.

After that, I have to find a theater in which to have Magnum Opus performed (hopefully still early February), get that date solidified, then find a pianist (to accompany auditions, as rehearsal accompanist, and to play piano for the show), hold auditions, cast the show, find musicians, orchestrate the show for them, find the rest of the artistic staff, get a crew, hold rehearsals, and perform the opera. Still a lot of work to do.

And on top of that school starts up again next week... I'm actually really excited for that, though.

Just a quick update- I finished Scene 9. The mezzo's aria proved to be kind of difficult to write, but finally today I got into a pattern for it and finished it. I'm really proud of it! It's way better than the two other drafts that I deleted, heh. So, that means the big, dramatic turning point of the opera has been composed... Only two more scenes! As of now, Magnum Opus is 51 minutes and 25 seconds long. Maybe I won't get to an hour and a half after all, but that might be for the best anyway.

I've recently been really diving into Britten's opera Peter Grimes. It's absolutely phenomenal... I've only really looked at/listened to Act I so far, but I'll get into more of it soon. My favorite part so far is the Second Interlude, when the storm is hitting the town. It's really, really cool stuff.

After still more edits to Scene 8, I've finally made some headway into Scene 9 of Magnum Opus. I'm pretty proud of my accompaniments for Schumann's little extended solo and for the Melpomene/Robert/Schumann trio. I think it could make for some really exciting theatre. I'm about to hit the climax of Scene 9... all in all, I have fewer than 3 1/2 pages of libretto to set!

School starts up again in 3 weeks. I'm hoping to have the last pages done by then so I have a month to get some good editing done before I start orchestrating. I'm looking forward to getting back to school and really putting this opera into motion with auditions!