Synopsis
Scene 1 – Any day.
Adam Pollo’s house on a seaside hill. Adam is writing a letter. He writes many letters every day.
Scene 2 – A different day.
Adam’s house on the hill. Adam comes across a rat.
Scene 3 – The next day.
In the town. Adam delivers a speech to passers-by.
Interlude
Scene 4 – A number of days later.
An institution in the countryside. Adam is interrogated.
An amnesiac named Adam Pollo deserts the army to live alone in a seaside squat. A hot summer of solitude leads Adam to increasingly extreme and destructive behaviour. Eventually, Adam is sent to an institution where adjusting to his new surroundings and formal removal from society means he is free from striving to find his place within it. Based on the 1963 novel Le Procès-Verbal by J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Adam Pollo’s house on a seaside hill. Adam is writing a letter. He writes many letters every day.
Scene 2 – A different day.
Adam’s house on the hill. Adam comes across a rat.
Scene 3 – The next day.
In the town. Adam delivers a speech to passers-by.
Interlude
Scene 4 – A number of days later.
An institution in the countryside. Adam is interrogated.
An amnesiac named Adam Pollo deserts the army to live alone in a seaside squat. A hot summer of solitude leads Adam to increasingly extreme and destructive behaviour. Eventually, Adam is sent to an institution where adjusting to his new surroundings and formal removal from society means he is free from striving to find his place within it. Based on the 1963 novel Le Procès-Verbal by J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Note from the composer
My first reading of the novel upon which this opera is based was four years ago – I immediately thought of Adam Pollo as a perfect operatic character. His inability yet desperate desire to understand the world around him suggested both the musical language and the form that this piece takes. Like an extended da capo aria, the piece has three sections. The first, scene 1, enters Adam’s half-formed world where his out-of kilter relationship with the world and society is heard with the shifting music for clarinet and cello against the slow moving crotale music; throughout the piece the contrast between Adam’s psyche and narrative events is portrayed through music of the unpitched percussion, clarinet and cello ‘versus’ the crotale and voice sound-world. His feelings of separation and loneliness lead him to fantasise about his “happiest days” in the ‘Michelle’ aria - this fantasy expresses the strength of his desire to lead a normal life, to ‘fit in’ to society and the music here moves Adam towards a lyrical aria but it is stilted – he sings predominantly in crotchets, flits between minor and major intervals and never quite finds the musical language to match the instruments accompanying. Eventually it breaks down and he is left frustrated.
The second section, scenes two and three, show Adam’s descent into madness and the deranged behaviour that leads to his incarceration. The music focuses on slowly transforming sounds; initially in the electronic manipulation of the crotales but then in the cello and clarinet parts. Before long Adam’s violent swings of temperament juxtaposes this morphing with rhythmically driving passages mixing measures of compound-time and simple-time. Toward the end of scene 2 the angular rhythms begin to dominate as Adam’s persecution of the rat becomes relentless; bludgeoning the animal in swell after swell of music.
Scene 3 allows a literal reading of the role of the instruments – the music for clarinet and cello ‘become’ the onlookers listening to the speech being delivered. The narration of this scene has two takes occurring simultaneously – the tape part, clarinet and cello depict the ‘real-world’ narration of events unfolding, while the music for electronics, Adam and the crotales provide the scene as it unfolds in the protagonist’s head. The clarinet and cello are oblivious to Adam’s mental state and continue to work through their material reacting only to the speech as given on the tape. The contrasting material that Adam sings (to that which he says on the tape part) exposes what he means by coming into the town – a plea for help, a last desperate attempt to join society and lead a normal life but he is unable to communicate... he becomes frustrated and cannot help, through his frustration, to fulfil the expectation of the crowd that he is insane and lead to the demise of his freedom.
Finally Adam has been removed from society – the music expresses his passive, worn down state in repeated perfect fourths and fifths positioned, as at the start of the opera, to be discordant not consonant. Over the course of the scene the electronic manipulation of the crotales and his own voice begin to take over his natural voice – what he sings is distorted and overlayed by the crotale music emanating from his own body. After a repeat of the ‘Michelle’ aria the piece ends with an oppressive repetition of the rhythmic theme that first marked his descent into deluded and violent behaviour.
AKB
The second section, scenes two and three, show Adam’s descent into madness and the deranged behaviour that leads to his incarceration. The music focuses on slowly transforming sounds; initially in the electronic manipulation of the crotales but then in the cello and clarinet parts. Before long Adam’s violent swings of temperament juxtaposes this morphing with rhythmically driving passages mixing measures of compound-time and simple-time. Toward the end of scene 2 the angular rhythms begin to dominate as Adam’s persecution of the rat becomes relentless; bludgeoning the animal in swell after swell of music.
Scene 3 allows a literal reading of the role of the instruments – the music for clarinet and cello ‘become’ the onlookers listening to the speech being delivered. The narration of this scene has two takes occurring simultaneously – the tape part, clarinet and cello depict the ‘real-world’ narration of events unfolding, while the music for electronics, Adam and the crotales provide the scene as it unfolds in the protagonist’s head. The clarinet and cello are oblivious to Adam’s mental state and continue to work through their material reacting only to the speech as given on the tape. The contrasting material that Adam sings (to that which he says on the tape part) exposes what he means by coming into the town – a plea for help, a last desperate attempt to join society and lead a normal life but he is unable to communicate... he becomes frustrated and cannot help, through his frustration, to fulfil the expectation of the crowd that he is insane and lead to the demise of his freedom.
Finally Adam has been removed from society – the music expresses his passive, worn down state in repeated perfect fourths and fifths positioned, as at the start of the opera, to be discordant not consonant. Over the course of the scene the electronic manipulation of the crotales and his own voice begin to take over his natural voice – what he sings is distorted and overlayed by the crotale music emanating from his own body. After a repeat of the ‘Michelle’ aria the piece ends with an oppressive repetition of the rhythmic theme that first marked his descent into deluded and violent behaviour.
AKB