Chris Cerrone has an unconventional ear when it comes to opera and classical. If you don't know what that means then you haven't heard Cerrone's "wireless opera" Invisible Cities, a collaboration with Yuval Sharon.
Invisible Cities is based on the 1972 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino, and its music and libretto is written by the 29-year-old, a New York City native. He and director Sharon, 34, began discussing it in 2008 and by 2012 had settled on an immersive, ambulatory and wireless format.
The format includes patrons donning wireless headphones as 15 singers and dancers, which also includes an 11-piece orchestra, perform among passersby, commuters and the general public that pass through Union Station.
But that isn't all Cerrone has dug his hands into. In a similar vein as his 2013 opera, his follow up production, The Pieces That Fell to Earth, a song cycle that interpretes and reflects the words of the Bay Area poet Kay Ryan.
In it is soprano Hila Plitman, who memorized the songs and acted them out with a "dramatic punch, intensified by amplification."
As the L.A. Times writes of Cerrone's production:
"Yet Cerrone's instinct here was toward emphasis. He could get stuck on a line and repeat it again and again, the pitch rising, the rhythm gaining in insistence, a crescendo crashing on a climax. I heard echoes not of Copland and Thomson but of Benjamin Britten and Purcell, where ordinary sentiments can be inflated until they begin to startle."
Having been considered for a Pulitzer and so on, Cerrone has is also a part of a classical consortium known as Sleeping Giant, who recently just help commission a work for eighth blackbird as part of the Great Lakes Chamber Festival.
From wireless operas to a lengthy piece for an even lengthier festival, we were able to get Chris on the phone for a conversation regarding his latest engagements.
Classicalite: Chris, it's an honor to have you on the horn with us. We've been fans of yours since Invisible Cities, a production that's had a grip on us since. To start this off, we all want to know, how was the experience?
Chris Cerrone: It was an amazing experience and I think it was all very organic in terms of the collaboration. It really was a collaboration where the sum product was greater than any one person's contribution. It was a lucky set of circumstances.
C: Of course it was! You really struck a unique chord with your viewership by incorporating the wireless headphones. How do you think the headphones catered to the entire experience overall?
Chris: Well, the headphones were really special to me because I really created this sort of music that's very melancholy as well as internal. Particularly that piece, It was a very internalized experience. So, the opportunity to have the headphones mixed in was great because, while a lot of pop music and classical music is saturated, you have this really powerful resonant world in your ears while you're walking around.
C: Amazing. Invisible Cities was also up for a Pulitzer Prize along with Julia Wolfe's Anthracite, which ended up earning the award. What do you think of the win? Are you friends with Wolfe?
Chris: I think it's great. I've only heard a little of the piece but I really think she's really found her special "thing" that she does with these pieces. I consider her a friend but more so a mentor and I think she takes this bulk material and blends them with her voice. I love Steel Hammer.
C: Of course, Julia is an amazing talent and I agree, her talent is very unique but is objectively accessible by anyone who listens to her. But to switch gears for a minute, and perhaps the reason we have you here, is your commission from eighth blackbird for the Great Lakes Chamber Festival. You did the commission with your consortium, Sleeping Giant, and I wanted to know how the overall mood was during the process.
Chris: Well, eighth blackbird is amazing. It's been an incredibly long process and even finding a commissioner to write a piece was a process. Being able to collaborate on the piece was challenging especially since all of us were scattered around the country. It was a challenge just to get us into one place!
C: The piece was certainly lengthy, so I guess my last question is, was it difficult to cut it down? Was it challenging to work with so many people on one piece?
Chris: We were able to workshop it and cut it down because the first performance of it was initially 17 minutes long. We've been working together for a long time so it's easy to approach one another and talk about the piece and the commission and collaborate, especially with eighth blackbird who can express their desires and problems with what we're doing.
We're all very close, we're all very close friends."
