By Mursi Saad El-Din The word opera has long been associated with such names as Verdi, Mozart, Wagner and other classical composers. Much rarer are the mentions of modern opera by contemporary composers, although there are, no doubt, a number of attempts in producing such a musical form. However, if we examine the productions staged on grand opera houses like the Vienna Opera House or La Scalla, we find that it is indeed the classical operas that continue to dominate their repertoire. This is why I was intrigued to read about a new opera that will be premiered at the Royal Opera House on 3 May. The opera is based on George Orwell's comic novel 1984, and is the product of American composer and conductor Lorin Maazel. I can't wait to see how Big Brother will be represented in the opera. True, Orwell wrote his novel in 1948, but its concerns are just as crucial now. "In his book," says Maazel, "Orwell looked ahead, extrapolated the essentials and carried certain tendencies to their logical and cataclysmic conclusions." "Little did he know," the composer goes on to say, "how accurate some of his predictions would prove." In a long article in The Independent 's Arts and Books Review, Jessica Ducken writes about this rather daring project, with a number of important quotes by Maazel. Answering the question about the suitability of the topic for opera, the composer/conductor says that it is "the very stuff of opera". Commenting on the role of opera in society, Maazel's words were that while in conversation with the librettist and the stage director before a word or a note had been written, "we thought quite seriously about what a challenge it would be to write an opera with a libretto that would be relevant and of concern today." In Verdi's lifetime, Maazel proceeds, "the opera house was the centre of the community in which it functioned. Opera was a theatrical event in the best sense because theatre always reflected the concern of the day, an idea that went back to ancient Greece. You would disguise the events you were describing, but everyone knew what Don Carlo was really about, or Nabucco, or the other wonderful operas that stimulated the people's passion about political events and social phenomena." The opera house was not what people today consider an elitist exercise, but the meeting place for "the most alert-minded people of the community and it had quite an influence on the way they thought about the world in which they lived". Opera houses now, be they the Metropolitan Opera in New York or Covent Garden or the Opera de Paris, are not places where the burning questions of today are addressed. They are rather "a place where people go to wear their jewels and the seats are a bit expensive. The world of opera seems to have been marginalised." And this is something Maazel has always fought against. In all the positions he held, in Berlin and Vienna, he always tried "to programme works that would draw a wider group of people into opera houses." By focussing the attention of the community on what happened inside the opera house, "I could help to revive the art form, attracting various elements of society from different walks of life. I hoped it would be somewhere in which people who did have concerns could find them brought into focus." Maazel remains critical of new opera in the mid-20th century, which, according to him, had moved largely into "fantastical spheres dominated by ever more unlikely, sometimes incomprehensible, psychological symbolism". Modern opera, in his opinion, was not written with a reflection of the concerns of the day; in fact people did not seem to be writing operas that were "anything but marginal in content". Maazel hopes that 1984 may help to revive opera, through its power and immediacy. Through Orwell's masterpiece, he says, he will write music "that everybody can relate to". Jessica Ducken asks if, ultimately, 1984 will be able to withstand the blasts of criticism and outrage that usually accompany the premieres of such work, and Maazel's answer is: "We did not write the opera to be successful or unsuccessful. We had no axes to grind. All we wanted to do was tell a good story, and we're perfectly willing to let the chips fall where they may. We are convinced only of one thing, we did the best we could. If it's not good enough, then at least we tried. And none of us will ever regret having tried."
