BLOG: Talking Trouble in Tahiti with Joseph Li
Finding Bernstein’s Compositional Style in Trouble in Tahiti
Trouble in Tahiti, the first portion of Minnesota Opera’s double bill evening at the Luminary Arts Center, has been referred to as one of the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein’s darker works. Widely known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim on projects like West Side Story, Bernstein is responsible for some of the most famous melodies in American music. He composed Trouble in Tahiti in 1951 while on his honeymoon in Mexico with his wife Felicia and based the story about an unhappy couple on his own parents.
We sat down with MN Opera Vice President, Artistic, and the conductor for Trouble in Tahiti and Service Provider Joseph Li to talk about the ways in which Bernstein’s compositional style shows up in the score for this one-act opera.
Many audience members will be more familiar with some of Bernstein’s other work as a composer, in particular Candide and the score for West Side Story, both of which premiered a few years after Trouble in Tahiti. Are there any hints of Bernstein’s compositional style that listeners with “America” or “Maria” already in their ear might be able to recognize in Trouble in Tahiti?
Joseph Li: Taking the examples you’ve mentioned: listeners familiar with “America” will recognize the percussive and rhythmic sandbox Bernstein loved to play in, especially the hemiolas in Sam’s “There’s a law” and Dinah’s “What a movie!” arias. The shifting two and three counts within the same tempo will often make you want to get up out of your seat and dance. Listeners familiar with “Maria” will instantly recognize the sweep and stillness both of Bernstein’s lyricism in the heartbreaking duet between Sam and Dinah, and in Dinah’s “There is a garden.”
One distinctive element of Trouble in Tahiti is the Jazz Trio that serves a kind of Greek Chorus-style role throughout the various scenes. Can you describe the influence of jazz on this piece overall and are there any other major examples of the art forms of jazz and opera coming together?
JL: The jazz influence shows up in both the vocal and instrumental writing – folks who have backgrounds singing in jazz ensembles will instantly recognize the many voices blending together as one melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic voice. The instrumental writing underneath them involves a brass padding complete with drum kit and multiple clarinet solo moments, one of which feels is extremely virtuosic and has an improvised feel to it. Both vocal and instrumental groups swing hard in these numbers, which provides a fun and glossy contrast to the starkly and often relentless troubled music that underscores the couple. Joplin, Gershwin, and Weill were three composers who began to realize the flirtation of opera and jazz in the early 20th century, but Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones are excellent examples of the two artforms being melded together in equal measure. If you want to experience that unique blending of music, come to the Arts Partnership’s presentation of Terence Blanchard, The E-Collective, and the Turtle Island Quartet performing excerpts from Fire Shut Up in My Bones next season!
You’ll be leading the MN Opera Orchestra during these performances – can you talk about your previous experience conducting Trouble in Tahiti and how the orchestra’s role in this opera is unique?
JL: When I conducted Baylor’s opera orchestra in this piece in 2018, I was floored by how quickly they were able to switch between the classical and jazz moments – that is definitely a challenge for an orchestra unique to this piece. Bernstein’s soundscape tasks the winds, brass, and percussion with painting the suburban utopia, the ideal to which Sam, Dinah, and the rest of America desperately wanted to both achieve and present. The strings are brought in to comment on both the couple’s contentious reality and their moments of vulnerability and despair. I’m excited for our MN Opera Orchestra musicians to showcase and underscore these contrasts between ideal and reality and the entire gamut of complex human emotions in between.
Speaking of the orchestra, how will the setup at the Luminary (which doesn’t have an orchestra pit like the Ordway does) factor into the audience experience?
JL: With no pit, the orchestra musicians and I will be situated upstage center, behind yet central to the storytelling. The Luminary affords a much more immediate and intimate experience of the combined vocal and instrumental forces on stage. Among many things, this piece holds up an affectionate but unsparing mirror to us as an audience – the experience of the music and action happening in that intimate space makes the story all the more real and creates the space for a healthy mixture of conversation and personal reflection from all who experience it. The artists and staff on this show have bravely engaged in that conversation and self-reflection throughout the rehearsal process – my hope is that you will all be moved to do so as well!
MN Opera’s double feature of Trouble in Tahiti and Service Provider runs March 9-23 at the Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood.