Lessons from "Hydrogen Jukebox"

Photo by Ron T. Ennis/Fort Worth Opera

I attended a performance of Hydrogen Jukebox presented as part of Fort Worth Opera's 2011 Festival.  The music is by Philip Glass, and the text is by Allen Ginsberg.  The two of them actually collaborated on the project; it wasn't just a matter of the composer grabbing text he liked and running with it.  I think that sort of partnership can really pay off with presentational art, even though I don't really know how well they worked together.

Truth be told, I don't really like putting on a set of headphones and listening to Philip Glass compositions.  In some institutions of higher learning, his music is ridiculed because of its simplicity.  Heck, I've made fun of his music with a room full of theory students.  Though it may not be explicitly said, the message in some composition programs comes across as, "Write whatever you like, as long as it sounds complicated enough to impress someone."  Minimalism a la Philip Glass certainly does not apply.

What they don't bring into the conversation, though, is the fact that so much of the music Glass writes is only part of the overall experience.  There is also choreography or staging or other engaging presentational elements that go hand-in-hand with the music.   In the context for which it was created, the music becomes not only highly appropriate but incredibly effective.  I walked out of Hydrogen Jukebox thinking (among other things), "How has this work not been programmed in this country for 20 years!?"


The music is rather repetitive, although there is a fair bit of variety over the course of the entire piece.  Still, just looking at the score could trigger all manner of preconceived notions of how boring minimalist music can be.  It is a widely-held belief that if an arts organization dares to program "new" music, it will lose a significant portion of its audience.  I don't know how true that actually is, but if that concern exists, then an organization is likely to consider a minimalist composer so niche within the realm of "new" music that it would have additional hurdles to clear.  Convincing a ticket-buying public to come and see something they start off thinking they'll hate is not an appealing prospect.

It also doesn't have a real plot.  The official term for Hydrogen Jukebox is 'melodrama', and as such there are no clearly-defined stock characters involved in typical operatic relationships.  There are singers, and there is action, but it isn't easy to say what the story is about.  Even the most convoluted traditional opera can be summed up in a couple of sentences well enough for a potential audience member to know what to expect.  It can potentially be more of a challenge to interest people in a relatively unknown work that doesn't fit neatly into a pre-packaged formula.

The subject matter is also mature, which to some people means unsafe.  Ginsberg's poetry challenges society to a potentially uncomfortable level of self-examination which only becomes more poignant when set effectively to music.  Compared to just hearing the poem read, music allows for longer pauses between sung lines.  Instead of waiting for someone to say what comes next in the poem, an audience can accept that instrumental space between the words is part of the setting, and this allows the words a few more moments to sink in.  And what sinks in is challenging.  In a time when some people are looking for a reason to complain, a piece that is blatantly more than sheer entertainment is ripe for criticism.

Don't get me wrong.  People complain plenty when their entertainment isn't exactly how they expect it to be.  Heaven forbid a work of art should actually make them think as well.  Even though that mindset only describes a very small portion of the art-viewing public, it's no fun for an organization to defend itself against such an onslaught of ignorance.  When there are safer works out there with more widespread appeal and less preconceived opinions to fend off, I suppose I can see why Hydrogen Jukebox isn't programmed somewhere in the country every year.  But it should be.

Photo by Ellen Appel/Fort Worth Opera

The themes about war, gender identity, societal values, love, environmentalism, and homosexuality are as appropriate today as they were when the work premiered in 1990, if not more so.  The music is accessible, and as I have said, impeccably engaging in the context of the work.  And whatever fears or preconceived notions may send up red flags for a company considering programming the work, the Fort Worth Opera's production was completely sold out before the festival even opened.  Considering all of the potential challenges that seem inherent with a work like Hydrogen Jukebox, it's worth noting that most of the handful of complaints about the production came from people who didn't even deign to attend a performance.

I take a lot away from all of this.  Once again, I am reminded that music does not need to be complicated in order to be enjoyable or effective or "aesthetically viable," and I have an opportunity to reassess some of my current projects.  I am convinced even more strongly of the power of theatrical elements to attract an audience to a live performance in an age where music can be downloaded for a dollar.  I also see how insignificant potential potholes can turn into mountainous obstacles in my own mind, how a few ridiculous complaints from self-important individuals can cast the illusion that the entire world is against something, and how much more powerful authentic art is than any amount of ignorance or prejudice.

Poem for Memorial Day

[Initially, I had a rather complex indention scheme for this poem, which does not work well in this particular electronic interface.  I learned a bit about indenting lines in html, still was not pleased with the rendering on the screen, and so made some adjustments and adapted.  In any case, it was a short lesson in recognizing when an ideal may be a bit precious when creativity meets practical reality.]
 
Memorial (for soldiers known and unknown)
 
I honor you, O soldier,
who has fought and died with impassioned conviction.
I honor your commitment to a purpose, to an unassailable belief,
whether that belief welled up from within your soul
or manifested through intense indoctrination;
I honor the hard and fast lines of your truth,
even as I vehemently disagree with them.

In honoring you, I do not endorse the military industrial complex,
that hydra god
which can never be memorialized in its undying profits.
I honor your humanity,
your finite strength and infinite fallibility,
I honor your humanity,
your reckless courage and poorly hidden fear,
I honor your humanity,
O soldier who has fought and died.

You fought and died
for that elusive ideal labeled Freedom.
You fought and died
for inalienable rights
which can neither be conferred nor revoked by any human endeavor,
you fought and died
that power should remain in the hands of those
with the loudest voices and the deepest pockets,
you fought and died
that people who are as safe as anyone can possibly be
might believe that they are more secure than anyone can possibly be;
you fought and died
that the unborn might have the right to choose oblivion
over childhoods of poverty and neglect;
you fought and died
that consenting adults
might follow their sexual proclivities with impunity;
you fought and died
that any who prefer to do so
may wish a person Happy Holidays without fear of reprisal;
you fought and died
that the wealthy might entice the desperate
to orgiastic acts of depravity,
filmed and broadcast for the working class on pay-per-view;
you fought and died
with a steadfast devotion to people who never cared to know you,
clutching your military rosary beads, the chain of command.

You fought and died,
and the time of accountability for your actions has ended.
You are exonerated, if such a need exists.
You have served well and fully,
and though deserving of rest, you shall instead be immortalized
in the spittle of screed-spewing politicians,
and on the forked tongues
of those power hungry paragons of talk-radio buffoonery,
who confuse hatred for patriotism
and rhetoric for wisdom.
They offer fruit from a tree of jingoism
cloaked in the black-and-white moral absolutism of religion,
fruit to cure the unashamed nakedness of those who believe
that they are free indeed.
You are the branch from which that fruit is so often plucked.
In becoming a shibboleth for national pride,
however warranted or undeserving,
you have become sterile,
automaton, holy, stylized,
inhuman.

I honor you in your frailty,
for in that human susceptibility we are united.

I honor you in your frailty, O grandfather,
who called himself a soldier of the cross.
You fought in no national war, but your battles were manifold.
You were the serenity of Christ,
You were the joy of Christ,
You sang mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy
in the voice of Christ.
In honoring you,
I do not endorse the conservative evangelical Christian institution,
for which hatred and bigotry are justified
toward infidels and nonbelievers,
which cries out for justice for others and grace for itself.
You were the mind of Buddha and the love of Buddha
and the passivity of Buddha,
You were the delight of Krishna and the passion of Krishna
and the wisdom of Krishna.

Buddha Krishna Christ,
whose lap I sat upon to read;
Buddha Krishna Christ,
who spoke love
when others spoke admonishment;
Buddha Krishna Christ,
who cut down trees with a chainsaw
for his wife to have a better view of the mountains;
Buddha Krishna Christ,
who was walked upon
by those whom he loved;
Buddha Krishna Christ,
who knew that people never listen
and who spoke anyway.

When you were old, you stretched out your hands
and someone else dressed you
and led you where you did not want to go.
Instead of security,
those whom you held dear placed stones about you
and cast you into a river whose surface you had never breached,
a river with many names,
the foremost among them Ignorance and Greed.
You were the sacrificial lamb for the sake of a few.
You did not rise again after three days,
yet your absolution was immutable love.

I honor you, O soldier,
who fought and died in another’s war,
your true dignity arising not from uniform or adornment,
but from human perseverance and conviction.
I honor you, O soldier,
who has fought and died.
We are not united by cause or belief,
but by something much deeper.

--Randolph Partain
May 29, 2011