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By Mark Rhodes

William Bolcom and librettist Arnold Weinstein discuss A View from the Bridge with Arthur Miller in Weinstein's apartment at Chelsea Hotel in New York (1999).

Showing exceptional musical promise from a young age, William Bolcom entered the University of Washington at age of eleven and studied composition with John Verrall and piano with Berthe Poncy Jacobson. His studies took him to Mills College (California) as well as the Conservatoire de Musique (Paris) and eventually to Stanford where he completed his doctorate in composition.

Most notably, Bolcom has been one-half of one of the more fruitful and long-lasting collaborations in American classical music; since the 1960s he has worked with the librettist Arnold Weinstein to produce some of the most interesting and unique works in modern American music, including the operas Dynamite Tonight (1966), McTeague (1992), A View from the Bridge (1999) and The Wedding which will have its premiere in 2004 at Lyric Opera of Chicago. A View From the Bridge premiered to great acclaim in 1999 in Chicago and is about to make its debut at the Metropolitan Opera. USOPERAWEB spoke with Mr. Bolcom about View and the state of American opera.

To start with, Mr. Bolcom spoke about the origins of the opera version of A View From the Bridge. "What happens every once in a while is that somebody decides to set one of the major plays, whether it is Death of a Salesman or All My Sons to music and make it into an opera. And so, Arnold being an especially talented librettist, would be called in by Mr. [Arthur] Miller to try to figure out how to transform his work into an opera. They tried to transform Death of a Salesman into an opera and it just wouldn't work. So, after some frustration and dead ends with this approach, Arthur said, 'Which of my plays do you think would be a good opera?' and Arnold said 'View from the Bridge is screaming to be an opera,' and shortly afterwards I got a call from Arnold and he said 'Arthur and I would like to have you do View from the Bridge as our second commission for Lyric Opera.'"

Mr. Bolcom understood quickly that the Miller work leant itself to being transformed into an opera. "If you are going to do an opera from a play, it better have a dimension that the play doesn't have. You have got to have a reason to do the piece. With the play version the reason is that you can't have your chorus speak at all because it is financially prohibitive. So, as soon as the chorus opens up its mouth the price goes up because of equity. So, naturally one of the great resources of opera houses are choruses and you can use this resource much more easily and readily in opera productions."

Mr. Bolcom's interest in developing a uniquely American opera form helped in the choice of Miller's play as well. "Well I am American and I am interested in establishing a truly American opera and I think that there is a lot of room to do so. See, there is always a strong need for Americans to know what is going on and with Miller's play you can understand what is happening easily and quickly. I think American audiences appreciate that. The thing you have to remember about opera is that it is less intelligible than a play or a movie. So, you have to often trade on a certain amount of prior knowledge from the audience, which is why even in the most traditional opera you have a tradition of using well-known myths, like Orpheus. It is funny you should mention that, because the other day I read an article which said you can't make a good opera out of a novel. That is really crazy, because if the novel's plot is reasonably well-known you can count on the audience's memory to do some of the work and you don't have to worry about hammering home the plot points on a regular basis."

Catherine Malfitano as Beatrice and Kim Josephson as her husband Eddie Carbone in world premiere of A View from the Bridge (William Bolcom) a Lyric Opera of Chicago (October 9, 1999). Photo by Dan Rest/LOC.

The raw quality of the story helps make a connection with the audience as well. "In theater you have the text and then below it you have the subtext. In opera it is pretty much the opposite, the subtext is what you are really dealing with first and foremost. So what you usually have are big, raw emotions, which are supported by the text. So, the source is really not that important as long as it has a strong enough subtext to support the format of opera. As I said, not all of Arthur's plays would make strong opera; but View From the Bridge has a big, strong story that you can tell on one page."

Given the eclectic array of styles in View From the Bridge, did Mr. Bolcom listen to music during the creative process? "I don't have a lot of time to listen to music. But people send me a lot of great stuff and I eventually get around to hearing most of it and corresponding about it in an appropriate way. Unfortunately, I am usually too busy with my own stuff to hear everything I would like to hear."

Interestingly enough, the work has changed little from the Chicago version from 1999. "I did add some things for the Met production, mainly transitional things and a couple of short arias which I thought were helpful. I was interested in the idea of an extractable aria, which seems to have emerged from this piece. The aria is called 'NY Lights' and it is sung by Rodolpho and it has become a popular audition and recital piece."

Mr. Bolcom hopes that A View From the Bridge will help the public rediscover the power and majesty of this particular work. "I think that some productions of Miller's plays don't take into account the richness of humor and subtleties in his work. For instance Bob Falls production of Death of a Salesman mixes the humor and absurdity of Miller's work with the tragic nature of his characters. A View From the Bridge works as an opera because it is a powerful, simple story and it was basically half way to being an opera, even as a play."

Final Three

What is your "desert island" music? "To be honest, I have so much music in my head I don't think that I would need to have it physically with me, but I guess I would hope I could have some papers so I could write my own and hopefully someday someone would find the music and perform it."

Mr. Bolcom dodged the question concerning an opera composer he disliked. "I will say that I really admire Wagner's ability to build a scene. But, I get mad at him! Puccini was great at building a scene and he is very clever."

Underrated opera composer? "I think in general Porgy and Bess might be underappreciated. Someone once asked me to name the six most important American operas and I said Porgy and Bess times six."

Mark Rhodes lives and works on Long Island, New York.