Instead they ended up adapting her 2003 play “Eurydice” — a yearning, fanciful treatment of the Orpheus story in which Eurydice is reunited with her dead father in the underworld.
Aucoin and Ruhl wrote to each other for several years about turning the poetry of her play into a libretto, building character through music, and understanding the strengths and limitations of opera.
Hi — my name’s Matt Aucoin.
Pardon my forwardness — and my ignorance, for not knowing your work until now! — but I’m overwhelmed by your lucid musicality.
I also read an article about you and was struck by a phrase someone wrote about you — language becoming music, and music becoming language.
MATTHEW AUCOIN I had a separate Orpheus opera in mind that was entirely different, that was in a way an expansion of my piece “The Orphic Moment” — much darker, much more twisted.
SARAH RUHL I don’t remember it taking you very long to say, “Yes, let’s do that.” Always you were trying to make Orpheus more complex, since that was your way in.
Opera as magical realism: I think we should indulge our every magical-realist impulse in this piece.
AUCOIN In opera, all speech is dream speech.
Art becomes an incredible vehicle in which we can have the same dream at the same time, while awake.
It occurs to me that Orpheus has no parents; his lineage is disputed and totally confusing.
So he feeds off Orpheus and Eurydice, both of whom have too much interior life; they’re too likely to withdraw into their own worlds, and he knows that.
Do we care that we somewhat lose his absurdity ? The question about humor is maybe a larger question tonally about the piece.
AUCOIN The challenge with Hades is that it lies at an extreme of the male voice, but he should also sound quite deadpan.
When he says “How interesting,” he sings the word “how” on a high D flat for an entire bar.
RUHL It takes longer to sing than to speak, so everything has to be shorter.
In an early version of the score, he sang those directions very slowly, and it felt totally wrong — like moving through molasses.
It’s hard for me to have a good cry on Zoom; I’m not with other people, and I feel self-conscious with people watching me cry on video.