Monday 20 August 2012

NOW Magazine on Love & Librettos

NOW Magazine sat down with A Synonym for Love librettist Deborah Pearson to chat about love, librettos, and the near-algebraic equations that brought it all together at The Gladstone:

A SYNONYM FOR LOVE
John Kaplan

Debbie workshopping with
countertenor Scott Belluz
"There seems to be a major ideological rift in North American culture about sexual relationships, between those dedicated to conventional monogamy and those who believe in open relationships. The fact is, neither side is necessarily right and both models are problematic. In love, you always have two tenets, sexuality and romance; people are both possessive and attracted to others. In the monogamous model, you're told to ignore your attraction to another and stay faithful; in the open model, you're told to eradicate any sense of possessiveness you feel. No matter which side you believe in, everyone involved has to be onboard and accept whatever ground rules are established."

...

"At first I worked slowly, having to adjust to the rhythms and keep in mind the Italianate sounds, too; there aren't as many English words ending in 'o' or 'io' as there are in Italian. I used a rhyming dictionary at the beginning. At the first workshop, I discovered that the stresses in many of the lines were in the wrong places, so I had to do a major rewrite. It was like running a marathon at the beginning, but I realized by the end of the process that I'd gotten better and faster."

Read the full article here.

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