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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Fusion, Imagination and Translation: The Beowulf Opera Process Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1087w35m Author Byers, Barbara Lee Publication Date 2018 Supplemental Material https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1087w35m#supplemental Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Fusion, Imagination and Translation: The Beowulf Opera Process A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Music by Barbara Byers Committee in charge: Professor Anthony Davis, Chair Professor Mark Dresser Professor Shahrokh Yadegari 2018 Copyright Barbara Byers, 2018 All rights reserved. 2 The thesis of Barbara Byers is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ Chair University of California San Diego 2018 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………………….. iv List of Supplemental Files…………………………………………………………………………….... v Abstract of the Thesis……..………………………………………………………………………….... vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Musical Influences and Compositional Process……………………………………………………... 3 Material and Memory: The Making of Beowulf………………………….....……………………….. 14 Collision and Transformation: Beowulf Pageantry…...…………………………………………….. 21 Fusion vs. Confusion: Reimagining Beowulf Characters….………………………………………. 26 A Personal Stake: Grendel’s Mother….……………………………………………………………... 32 Translation: Beowulf Performance………………………………………………...……………….... 39 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………….... 46 References……………………………………………………………………………………………... 47 iv LIST OF SUPPLEMENTAL FILES Byers_ProgramNotes_Beowulf.pdf. Opera Program. Byers_LibrettoScore_Beowulf.pdf. Libretto and Score of the Opera. v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Fusion, Imagination and Translation: The Beowulf Opera Process by Barbara Byers Master of Arts in Music University of California San Diego, 2018 Professor Anthony Davis, Chair The opera Beowulf was performed on May 18, 2018 at the UCSD Experimental Theater, as the culmination of thesis research, collaboration, and composition by the author. Folk, metal, and eastern European musical traditions were primary influences on the score of the Beowulf opera. Conceptual research on the materiality of memory had a strong influence on the themes explored in the opera. Materials, puppets and masks were created in a collaboration with research to express a new way of looking at the Beowulf characters. The historic and contemporary voices of women in society were expressed in the opera through the character of Grendel's mother. Themes of the artistic and literary translation process was evident in the use vi of multiple languages and mediums throughout the opera. All of these research and creative processes were integral in weaving together the final performance. vii Introduction For a moment seeing only feet I crawled into the spacious chicken-wire, papier-mâché concealment in the painted frame of Beowulf, dried skin of flour and water, arms swinging loosely at our sides. The enormous puppet and I made so much noise, creaking and wobbling together behind the piano as I tried in vain to mask the noise; my desire to preserve the quiet dialogue happening on stage versus his unapologetic largeness. It was as if he laughed at me saying, “What did you expect? You made me to be a slayer of monsters, a monster myself more like Grendel than the hero I’ve been named. I will make my sounds!” The original concept for Beowulf’s character was that he would be silent, faceless and wordless in order to make him all the more uncanny and horrifying. My function inside this puppet was simply to make him breathe and walk, pushing against the inside of his body as I inhaled, retracting my arms as I exhaled, and moving with slow steps, toes raised, shins kicking. While Beowulf contained me, my concealed breath became his display of breath. I desired to bring Beowulf to life, to fuse our beings and share some sort of molding of consciousness and material, present and past narratives. It was fortunate dancer and choreographer Veronica Santiago Manuela got up from her quiet place on the floor and stood on my feet as I walked toward what I thought was that audience. With no site lines but my feet, I was about to overrun the bass player. The above-described scene is a moment from my Masters Thesis Performance, Beowulf, presented on May 18, 2018 at the UCSD Experimental Theater. Beginning in 2010 as a collaboration with my brother, Daniel Byers (librettist), Beowulf was an eight year process of research, writing, composition and iterations of live performance inspired by the Norse-themed, Anglo-Saxon scribed epic poem Beowulf. The grounding of the research was based upon Viking 1 age sagas, mythologies and poetic sources such as the Poetic and Prose Eddas, archeology and literary theory. In our collaboration, we focused on telling the first half of the story in which the hero, Beowulf, saves a community of Danish people from two monsters, Grendel and Grendel’s mother. The opera went through many evolutions of musical and lyrical content over the years, finally settling into an amalgam of work from throughout that time. The final choices were made to suit the unique situation, performers and materials involved in the full production. I composed all of the music and most of the lyrics for the songs, while my brother crafted the libretto. We went back and forth over the years sharing our research and ideas in a collaboration that was meaningful, inspiring each others’ artistic practices and reminding each other of the importance of collaboration and connection in the artistic process. We had both grown up loving the Beowulf poem and the literature and art surrounding it, and so we were both invested in exploring and reinventing the tale over the years that the opera was forming. Once the performance date was set and I knew the musicians and dancers I would be collaborating with, I went to work editing the libretto, choosing and transcribing songs, and devising the scenic and material elements. From its start in 2010 to its performance in 2018, this opera has been a deeply interdisciplinary work. In thinking about the characters, music and deciding how to construct the narrative, I incorporated research in philosophy, history and language. I explored issues of translation and the creativity involved therein. I thought about the characters through exercises in imagination, movement and material crafting, and studied archeology and poetry for aesthetic and narrative influence. I collaborated with dancers to find the right movements for each character and each song, and I created masks and puppets that expressed the images I accumulated around them over time. In the following paper I will discuss the music, concepts and thought processes that I explored while creating the Beowulf opera. But first, I will talk a bit about the musical influences and composition processes that went into the opera, and give some examples of how the music and lyrics were interwoven with theater and narrative. 2 Musical Influences and Compositional Process Folk music and aural traditions were key elements in my upbringing. My composition process is largely influenced by aural tradition in that I like to compose in such a way that I can hear the music as it is being composed. I compose music mostly through overdubbing processes using basic Pro Tools software. From these ‘demos’, I transcribe and assign lines to instruments and voices other than my own. I generally start with lyrics when I compose. Words are inherently rhythmic and melodic, and the melodies seem to write themselves when the preliminary linguistic structures are present. Once a melody is attached to a set of lyrics, I’ll record a percussion track. Next comes the instrumentation, which I choose from a variety of instruments I have on hand: oud, guzheng, lap dulcimer, Georgian panduri, charango, singing bowls, flutes, bells, etc. After this I will sing the main vocal line and then add layers vocal harmonies, ostinatos and theatrical textures. One of the things I value most as a composer and artist is collaboration. “Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum” (Anthony Davis, 2017). When I compose music, I don’t think of it as something fixed. I like to create songs which can grow and change over time and depending on the contexts in which they are performed. The people playing the music have a strong impact on what the music can say and sound like. For example, I knew that I wanted bird and water sounds in the beginning and end of the Beowulf opera because they were important to the nature and world creation/mythology themes. I didn’t, however, want them to sound exactly as I had recorded them in the original demo. I asked John Burnett to bring his skills with electronics, and to improvise with the soundscapes and samples during the performance. I admire John’s work with electronics and wanted his energy and character to be a collaborative part of the performance. Similarly, within the scores I included many instances where the notes written 3 were basic ostinato structures with implied room for improvisation

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