Wheeler2

Satisfied with the success of the performance, Wheeler said he made a decision to do two things: expand what he had done by another ten minutes to flush out the characters a little more and bring the incomplete product to New York to see if there was any interest there.
“It came to about twenty-five minutes,” he recalls, “and we did it down at the American Opera Project in New York City”. The year was 1998. Fortuitously, for a composer who says he gets bored quickly when he writes and likes to move on, fate seemed to follow the same path. “At American Opera” he explains “it was seen by people at New York City Opera. They have a program where they do excerpts from American Opera and they offered to take it and I offered to orchestrate it.” And in 2000 twenty-five minutes of what would end up being a two hour “Democracy – an American Comedy” was performed by New York City Opera.
In the audience at one of the performances sat Edgar Vincent – a press relations man for Placido Domingo. He liked what he heard and brought a copy of the tape to his boss. “Edgar said, we have to get this to Placido,” Wheeler recalls. Domingo read the libretto, heard what Wheeler had completed and liked it enough that he commissioned him to write a finished piece. “The day I met Placido is when he said he wanted to commission the piece. So, I started work on it, and at that point it went pretty quick.” The year was 2001. By 2002 the full opera was completed and the work of putting the production together began in earnest in D.C.

BRINGING IT HOME:
During the final phases of the making of this new opera, Wheeler says he and others worked together piecemeal as the needs arose, sometimes by phone, sometimes in person. With singers from the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, it was decided that Anne Manson would conduct and John Pascoe would provided the production design and direction. The opera would also feature members of the George Washington University Chamber Choir and debut the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. Wheeler says he was pleased with both the selections and finished product. In March of 2004, the full company got together behind music stands and piano and went through the entire score. “And that’s when Placido said it moves so well, maybe there could be moments when people could sit quietly and slowly and [the score could] stand to pause a little more than it did on the emotions [of the characters]. So I wrote three brief arias for Act Two in response to that, and in response to what the singers were saying about the same. And in 2004, I added about eight or ten minutes of music that we all love. And I did the final orchestration this past summer.”
It’s been about six years from conceptualization to finished product, a fast six years, according to Wheeler, and rewarding. In anticipation of its World Premier January of this year, Wheeler says he hopes it will be viewed as a serious work, “that says something that no other work does. That’s what you’ve got to do to make a difference. You have to come up with a piece that no other opera looks like. Certainly no other America opera looks like this one,” he says with certainty, adding “It has it’s own flavor.”
“It’s a serious business putting opera on stage,” Wheeler says. “You don’t take the easy choices.” In his case, the road to successful completion of a brand new opera was a combination of luck, hard work, faith, risk, seizing the moment and perseverance. From the start Wheeler, believed he was onto something good, and never once let up in his quest to have his opera produced. From the moment he read the play, to the first attempts to draft a score, to his idea to complete a few scenes and bring them to a friend for her opinion, things just jelled. One move after another, one successful small step followed by another, until the quality of what he had produced shown through and was noticed by someone with an interest in bringing it not another step, but to completion – that someone was Placido Domingo. Wheeler says he would like to see his opera mainstreamed and performed all across the country. What composer wouldn’t?
The first step in that journey begins in Washington D.C. sponsored by the nation’s official opera company, The Washington National Opera. From there. . . well, that will be up to the audience which Wheeler says he hopes will be moved enough by his music to make it a commercial success.

"I feel about this piece the same way I feel about jazz: I like certain parts that have a melody and keeps itself grounded in the familiar. But when it is just a group of people out there doing their own thing -- well sometimes it can just sound like noise (sorry Mr. Wheeler). I give a great deal of credit to the singers and the orchestra in this regard because it had to be difficult to tell how to keep one’s place or know what was coming next. As noted, the music didn’t seem to have any moorings to grasp onto – either for the singers or the audience.
That being said the performers did an outstanding job. The stage, changing many times throughout, was wonderfully designed making it easy to change and maintain all of the needed moods.
The Act II split stage with both couples dueling with their respective love interests was well-done and imaginative. While not perfect, Mr. Wheeler did produce a good piece of American opera and he will likely be sought after for new commissions. For my part, I will continue to study and learn more about this ‘new’ sound in hopes that I, too, will someday stand and applaud and know that it it is not just the vocal ability of the singers that deserve high praise, but also the work of the composer. Here, I go three quarter’s of the way. The performers did a commendable job, the set design and lighting was fine, as was the stage direction; it was the music that failed to take hold."