April 24–May 1, 1997

critical mass

Water Music

John Duffy, in Philadelphia for the production of Black Water.

The political ambitions of a powerful U.S. senator are shattered when the car in which he and a young woman passenger are driving plunges off the road and into the murky waters of an island resort. The senator escapes from the immersed car, but theyoung woman is left behind, trapped. The young woman dies — not immediately, but slowly, perhaps over a period of hours, while the senator panics, thinking only of his reputation.

The scenario is fictional — a synopsis of the new Joyce Carol Oates/John Duffy opera Black Water, adapted from Oates' novel of the same name, that has its world premiere this week at the American Music Theater Festival. But the events thatinspired the fiction did, of course, really take place, becoming so familiar that they have been burned into the American psyche, part of the modern myth of enormous power destroyed by hubris.

At the time of the Chappaquiddick affair, Joyce Carol Oates remembers being struck by the almost complete focus placed on Teddy Kennedy's political future, and how little attention was paid to the young woman who died in the "black water"of Martha's Vineyard on that July night in 1969. Shortly after the event, Oates imagined the young woman, trapped in the submerged car, in a prose poem. Years later, she returned to that prose poem to write Black Water, a novel told almostentirely from the point of view of Kelly, the woman whose life ends while she waits secure in the knowledge that the senator will return to save her as "the black water filled her lungs and she died."

AMTF commissioned Black Water, which has a libretto by Oates and music by Duffy. The production begins previews April 24 at Plays and Players Theatre.

"It's such a horrific image, this young woman waiting, trapped, for someone to come help her," Oates told City Paper in a telephone conversation from her home in Princeton, where she is a distinguished professor in the humanities atPrinceton University. "It's almost a religious plea for deliverance."

Oates took another look at what she had written about the Chappaquiddick incident around the time of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings. At almost the same time, she was struck by the inequities of the William Kennedy Smith trial. Neither thebook nor the opera reflect a point of view that could be called "feminist," according to Oates, although the initial impulse for writing the piece was the fact that Mary Jo Kopechne remained "a cypher" in all the news accounts ofthe incident.

"Kelly is never angry at the senator, she never blames him. Black Water is essentially the emotional state of a woman who is weaker, more dependent on a man. In a way, she gives the senator the role of being a savior."

Oates' novel is written almost entirely in the form of an interior monologue, the events and feelings all told through the mind of Kelly as she waits in vain to be rescued. In order to rework the story as an opera libretto, Oates had to see the storyfrom a whole new point of view — in essence, to rewrite it to give dimension to the other characters.

Composer John Duffy, who has written for symphony orchestra, theater, television and film, was searching for an "American subject" for an opera when he read a review of Oates' novel. He immediately ran out to buy a copy. He knew he'd foundhis subject.

"I was considering an opera about Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe," the composer told us. "It's that blend of pop culture, politics, the mob and show business that fascinated me."

Duffy found many of those same elements in Black Water.

"As I was reading the book, I was already hearing the music in my head."

He approached Oates about writing the libretto, and, after several exchanges of ideas about how they saw the story unfolding as a stage piece, the collaboration began.

Traditionally, the role of the librettist in writing an opera is subservient to the composer. The composer needs phrases of a certain number of beats, with the accent on a certain syllable, or with an open vowel sound, in order to shape the music.Duffy found Oates highly agreeable to the idea of making such changes, but they were seldom necessary.

"She has such an extraordinary imagination, and her writing is so rooted in the American tongue," Duffy says of his collaboration. "My challenge was to find a way to set it. We'd make cuts where it was needed, but we'd always end upwith at least a kernel of what she'd written."

According to Duffy, it took him a long time to get used to Oates' lack of the usual artist's ego about her work.

"Quite often, she'd tell me to go ahead and change things on my own if I needed to. It's different with me. I'm usually wary if someone changes even a note of my music. Working with Joyce was very refreshing."

Duffy, as founder and president of Meet the Composer, has helped a wide variety of American composers advance their work. Because of his own expansive interests, ranging from the theater to Bach to jazz, he used several different styles of music insetting the text of Black Water.

"The scene when everyone is wondering whether the senator will actually attend the cookout is pure musical comedy. Later, after the seduction, the music is very bluesy. Elsewhere, there's an almost reggae beat. I like to contrast the lyricalwith the pulsing."

Although the opera form itself is as much a first for Duffy as it is for Oates, both are intrigued by the possibilities of the form. Duffy would still like to pursue the Joe DiMaggio piece, while Oates is considering a work about boxer Joe Louis.

Both still seem to be fascinated with the larger-than-life figures of the American scene.