news & articles
"East meets West in Where Elephants Weep opera"
By Charles McDermid; Phnom Penh Post, Dec 1-14, 2006 Edition
Composer Him Sophy walks in, sits down, and starts talking about music.
Effusive and enthusiastic, the Moscow-trained doctor of Western Classical
Composition conducts a conversation that ranges from Peter Tchaikovsky
to George Gershwin - and finishes in a flourish as he unpacks the perplexing
underpinning of his new contemporary Cambodian opera Where Elephants Weep.
Sophy has just finished a month-long workshop in Phnom Penh with musicians,
conductors and performers from Cambodia and abroad. The rehearsals were
the first chance to hear Sophy's compositions performed by local musicians
and a major step in an ambitious musical project staggering in its complexity.
The first-of-its-kind opera attempts to fuse traditional Cambodian music
with Western structures in a songwriting salmagundi that includes rock,
rap, ancient Khmer lullabies and even cellphone rings.
In the span of one production, synthesizers, electric guitars and 12th
Century Cambodian instruments will be used to perform old Khmer Rouge
songs, American hip-hop and classical operatic love songs. The opera will
be sung in English and Khmer with surtitles in both languages as well.
It's a dizzying mix. But - according to Sophy - it's so incongruous, it
just might work.
"It's something you've never heard before. We allow the musicians
to play with the notes and improvise around the melodies, but with the
same Cambodian flavor, " Sophy told the Post.
"It's fantastic how it all fits together."
The groundbreaking project, commissioned by Cambodian Living Arts and
funded mostly by foreign donors, began in 2003. According to Sophy, performances
of Where Elephants Weep will include a 10- musician ensemble, nine actors,
five extras and a string quartet.
It's scheduled to open in Phnom Penh late next year, but will debut in
April at the 1920s-era stage at Lowell High School in Lowell, Massachusetts.
That Lowell High has a student body 38 percent Cambodian is hardly lost
on Sophy.
"The opera has a message; it's about the mix of Western and Cambodian
cultures and about how Cambodia is changing and developing," he said.
"It's also about being an artist and being in love."
Despite the disparate elements, executive producer John Burt believes
the work will be easily understood and enjoyed by audiences.
"This is a popular piece and a classical love story. The written
music is highly accessible and extremely musical. It's melodic and romantic,"
Burt said. "We've called it an opera, but it's probably closer to
what in the US we would call 'music theatre,' like 'West Side Story'."
According to Burt, it's Sophy's artistic voice and creative vision that
provide the project's character and cohesion.
"Sophy has the remarkable capacity to adapt to different musical
forms but maintain the integrity of his own voice," he said. "We've
been admiring his willingness to work with a creative team: the librettist,
the musicians and the cast. The team is all revolving around his music
and he's capable of working in a team and keeping his own voice."
Sophy, 43, was born in Prey Veng province 50 km outside Phnom Penh. He
studied piano under French instructors at the School of Fine Arts from
1972 until 1975. In the Pol Pot era he was taken to the country and forced
to work in labor camps. In 1979 he came back to Phnom Penh.
"There was no school so I worked here and there as a musician,"
Sophy said. "I didn't have the chance to go back to school until
1981."
In 1985, Sophy became the first Cambodian awarded a scholarship to the
Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where he studied for 13 years, earning
a doctorate in Western Classical Composition in 1998. His dissertation
was Theoretical Problems in Cambodian Traditional Music.
"If you are in school to learn about Western composition you're going
to be studying a lot of opera, " Sophy said. "I decided to do
opera in Moscow. I first wanted to do a children's opera. But fell in
love with Gershwin and Porgy and Bess.
"Opera has so, so many things involved; not just music: voice and
acting are important to express feelings expressly related to the scene,"
he said. "I told my professor that my dream was to write an opera.
She said 'To write an opera you must be very disciplined and patient.
You must be dedicated or otherwise you can't do it.'"
With Where Elephants Weep, Sophy and his team are in an unexplored musical
territory. For Sophy it is his first time writing music for the stage,
his first opera and his initial foray in to rock and roll. He was also
writing songs in English, his fifth fluent language.
Producer Burt says, "Most Western music is rooted deeply in the Western
classical tradition. So Sophy was well-trained before he ever started
writing music in Western forms. The lay listener may not understand that
but the logic enabled him to do it."
The opera is a love story, of course. It's the tale of a Cambodian-American
who is urged by his best friend to return to his home nation and cultural
roots. Sam, the protagonist, gives up his career as a musician in the
States and joins the monkhood in Phnom Penh. Along the way he falls in
love with a Cambodian pop star named Bopha.
Librettist Catherine Filloux, commissioned to write the opera's lyrics,
said, "We decided to follow the story of Tum Teav, the Cambodian
story, however to follow it very loosely. Tum Teav is called the Romeo
and Juliet of Cambodia. In this libretto I wanted to speak about a new
age; an age when a country could reclaim its spirit. There is light and
hope at the end of Where Elephants Weep. I hope that the fun, the love
between Sam and Bopha, the meeting of cultures and a way of re-imagining
our worlds are aspects of the opera that can heal."
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 15 / 24, December 1 - 14, 2006
© Michael Hayes, 2006. All rights revert to authors and artists on
publication.
For permission to publish any part of this publication, contact Michael
Hayes, Editor-in-Chief
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