David Lang’s new opera note to a friend will be presented by the Japan Society and Tokyo Bunka Kaikan as part of the 2023 Prototype Festival and he talks to Daniele Sahr about its composition
On 12 January, David Lang’s note to a friend will premiere at the Japan Society as part of New York’s Prototype Festival of new opera. He was commissioned to write the libretto and music, and he took on the project eager to work with renowned director Yoshi Oida. In speaking with Lang, I learned of the collaborative model he chose to follow – one in which Oida would have carte blanche to realize the plot in any way he imagined. The element of surprise is exciting to Lang, and it ensures that this will be a fresh experience in opera, one he consistently brings to audiences.
We spoke over Zoom before rehearsals had begun, and Lang relished the fact that the staging was still unknown to him. Nevertheless, we had plenty to discuss on process, inspiration, music, storytelling, operatic format and character development. After briefly reflecting on the loss of a coffee shop venue for this digitized meeting – ‘where every meeting is held everywhere, all the time’ as he put it – a conversation unfolded filled with humor, curiosity, wisdom, humility, authenticity and wonder.
Daniele Sahr: Your upcoming opera, note to a friend, is a collaborative commission that seeks to bring appreciation and a deepening of interest in Japanese culture to the United States. What made you want to be part of this project?
David Lang: Well, first of all, I don’t speak Japanese and cannot claim to know anything about Japan. But I’ve been a Japanese literature fan since I was in high school and have read a lot of it, of course in translation. They [the Japan Society] came to me and wanted to figure out something having to do with Japan, as part of the commission requirement. I immediately thought I love so much Japanese literature that I should probably search my memory and figure out what attracts me. I remembered that in high school I discovered the writing of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. He wrote the stories that the movie Rashomon was based on. And being from Los Angeles, I like film – you know, some people do film in Los Angeles! – and my high school had a film studies class. I read the Akutagawa stories and, since then, became a devourer of them.
When this commission came up, I remembered he’d done this unbelievably great and creepy suicide note when young. I know that suicide means something very different to us than it does in Japan. Though now that I think about it, I don’t know what it means to anybody. But I remember reading this, and it was a strange combination of something very serious, so self-aware, and even a little light-humored in some places. I remember thinking that there is an interesting character behind that suicide note, and maybe I could explore who that character is. Not from a Japanese point of view, but from my own understanding of what somebody who goes through that situation might be thinking or feeling.
DS: Now, in this production, you will also be working with the director Yoshi Oida.
DL: Yes, he is a famous actor and a famous director – nearly 90 years old. I remember seeing him on Peter Brooks’s incredible 1989 production of The Mahabharata. When the commission came to me, that was the part that got my attention – the Japan Society said they would like me to do a project with Yoshi Oida. That made my antenna go way up.
Daniele Sahr: When did you start working together on the project?
David Lang: One of the things that’s fun about opera is that it’s super collaborative. You get a chance to work with lots of people in lots of disciplines. And in each project, the responsibilities change. The libretto to Prisoner of the State [Lang, 2019] has instructions on what the action is, who goes where, what’s happening, who comes on or who goes off and what they’re feeling. It is all in the libretto. I knew I would be working with a legend and would need to show him deference and the respect that he deserves.
So, I didn’t put any of that information in. I did not tell him what the plot was. It says in the score that this is a problem to be solved – you get to impose a theatrical narrative onto this: the setting, the feeling, the action. I thought this would give Oida the most freedom to figure out what he would do, and I did not want to cramp his style. The really great thing about this is that we start rehearsals next week, and I don’t have a clue what he is doing. I am super excited. He’s a thoughtful person with a great sense of humor. I thought that giving Yoshi as much freedom as possible would get the best result. I will be as surprised by the result as you!
DS: You wrote the libretto and the music for note to a friend. I would be interested to hear about the practical and inspirational aspects of that process.
DL: For me, when you are working with opera, you have to start with character, with the basic question of who the people on stage are, what they are doing, what happens to them and then, how does music deepen our connection or understanding of their intellectual and emotional life. Music opens the door for you to get to the emotions of the character on stage. That’s what makes it three-dimensional. The question for me was, who is this person. It’s not a bio-opera about Akutagawa. It is about a character I have invented who goes through a process that causes him to write this [suicide] letter. I’ve totally re-written the letter, and I’m sure there are places where I’ve said the opposite of what’s in the original. It’s not about being accurate to the original. This idea about someone who is confident, composed, happy with his decision, who is discussing it rationally and with a little bit of wit: what this person is going to do gave me the idea of having him come back from beyond to tell us where he is and why he did it.
DS: It’s three stories, I believe, by Akutagawa that inspired you?
DL: Yes, I invented a character based on one story to which I added elements of two other stories. The original texts allowed me to get to the invention of the character. Then, how does music tell us who this person is – confident or happy, troubled then and now no longer troubled. The next step of what music tells us is how we should feel about that. Do we believe him? Is this an invitation or a warning for us? There is a complex underlayer of what the music is supposed to add to this person’s character. But you begin with who this character is, and why we should care.
DS: As you developed the libretto, did your relationship to the texts or Akutagawa evolve?
DL: Once I had the text roughly translated, I was not thinking about Akutagawa at all. As soon as I read the stories, he became someone I invented for the special needs of this project. Plus, I wrote this for my friend, Theo Bleckmann, who is an incredible cabaret singer. He’s not a traditional opera singer. I know what he does, so I shaped the character to be someone who related to his personality, his smooth confidence and beautiful, buttery voice. I could not have created this character without Theo. Cyrus Moshrefi also takes part in it, though his is a silent role.
DS: What is the rapport of the instrumentation to the singer in this work?
Instrumentation is really important. In this piece, they are listeners. They echo the singer sometimes. I don’t want to take attention away from the character … we have someone in front of us on stage, telling his story.
DS: Even though music adds to the emotion, you want to be sure it’s coming through the character?
DL: Yes, that is a good point. Where does the experience come from? It comes from the totality of everything, but the story is told through the character, not through the music in this particular piece. I wanted to make sure that everything that happens, happens through the character.
DS: In collaboration between different cultures, what would you say about the exchange of cultural influence?
DL: Even though I am a Japanophile, I couldn’t possibly write something from the perspective of one from the inside who knows what the culture means. And the only way I was able to do this was to abstract it from Japanese culture and put myself in the role, thinking of who I am as that character and what makes me emotional. We are in a time right now where people are trying to be authentically themselves – how not to encroach on anyone else’s authenticity. I think I have made [note to a friend] open enough so that any director could project his or her vision onto the work. So, I would not presume to know anything about Japan other than that it is really fun to go there, and I’m looking forward to going again.
DS: Like so many of your works, note to a friend is a chamber opera. You are a master of the short opera. What do you still love about this form, and what still challenges you?
DL: I like the idea of taking the magic of opera some place other than the opera house. There is a certain type of art you have to make because you are selling 4000 tickets and have big voices. There’s a tradition which is fantastic, and I go see opera a lot. But I feel that the beauty of music bringing us close to a character is a message which is larger and can go many more places than that one kind of venue. My goal has been to take that kind of character building into as many different places as possible. I try to imagine what the new challenge will be so that it becomes an unusual experience where the voice and the music actually are making something powerful happen to you – like what happens on the normal opera stage – but is in such an unusual environment that you see everything fresh. That’s what I’ve been trying to do.
DS: Is there anything else you hope the audience will take away from the performance?
DL: I haven’t heard it, and I haven’t seen it. I’m hoping everyone will have a great time, and I’m hoping I will too!
DS: It will be exciting to see the final production. Thank you so much for meeting with me today.