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Anna's
Rapid Eye Movement
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commissioned
by New Chamber Opera;
libretto by Shaen Catherwood;
extract released on Unknown Public #3;
total duration: c.35'
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Starting
where Stravinsky's Les Noces left off, four pianos with lots
of percussion and a talking clock accompany our half-awake, half-dreaming
heroine on a relentless 35-minute ride. Anna's search for the midnight
train takes her via the Travel Agents', the Bank and her bedroom
to a moment of truth beyond sleep.... Anna's Rapid Eye Movement was conceived as the second half of a double bill with Stravinsky's Les Noces, and has almost identical instrumental and vocal forces plus an additional four percussionists (so that the percussionists each have one instrument and can be positioned all around the performing space). There is also a musical link to the closing bars of Les Noces, and a strong structural similarity: both pieces are in two unequal halves, the first with three main scenes and the second containing just one scene transfigured at the very end. In Les Noces the marriage ceremony takes place between these two halves, while in Anna they are separated by a silence. The story of Anna's Rapid Eye Movement unfolds within the twilight sleep of its eponymous heroine as she fluctuates between dream states and waking reality. All the action apparently takes place between 11.30pm and midnight: clock time is measured very precisely in the music by an insistent beat in a regular 4/4 metre, but its relentlessness is tempered by contradictory pulses and the stretching of the harmonic rhythm reflecting the fluidity of psychological time. The piece begins with a telephone ringing and Anna arriving home just in time: it's her neighbour telling her the obvious, that she needs a holiday. Anna hangs up and sinks down on the couch into a sleep coloured by the sounds of a clock, an electronic alarm and a recording of the last music Bach ever wrote: Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus XIX. The urging, mocking voices of the Chorus start up, and Anna's room is transformed into a Travel Bureau. The Travel Agent, Bill, and his two assistants offer Anna a variety of fantastic excursions and holidays, but are rather cagey about the "midnight train" which has caught her attention. The Travel Agents disappear and the Chorus inform Anna that she is on her way to the Bank: she needs money for her ticket, and quickly. At the Bank Lee ("Honest" Lee) and his assistant - who begins the scene as a customer - negotiate with Anna the terms of a loan. The terms are unreasonable, to say the least, but it's not clear whether the deal is made because suddenly she is back home again. Her neighbour Sophie then makes an entrance and advises her on what to pack for her holiday. The train she is due to catch is leaving in a manner of minutes, but Anna is so tired she lies down again on the couch. At this point the music of Bach's Contrapunctus XIX resurfaces once again for its last few bars and the sound of the alarm becomes unbearable until Anna reaches out and turns it off; with this gesture the fugue also ends. After a moment of silence the Chorus begins to call Anna's name, at first in whispers; strands of music and text return in a five-minute accelerando and crescendo which climaxes in a "cut-to-train-arriving-at-platform" scene. The first stroke of midnight freezes the action, and from that moment the music slows down gradually, each stroke fainter and more delayed than the last. One by one the performers abandon their roles to become part of an impatient audience, and the piece ends abruptly just before the twelfth stroke is due. copyright Antony Pitts 1990-2
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