Trystero

Perfect Lives is about a bank robbery. Remove is about. Replace with surrounds. Let’s start again. Imagine a small Midwestern town. A traveling lounge act arrives to perform. Raoul, a seedy-looking older guy, a singer. And Buddy, his accompanist. There’s no doubt he’s the World’s Greatest Piano Player, the doubt is if he’s Mexican. And with them two locals, two siblings. An older sister, Isolde, she’s the olde and her brother, Donnie, the Captain of the Football Team, who works as the bank manager’s assistant. These four decide to pull a performance-art bank heist (at 12:45 PM, remember that!), whatever that means.Although it’s beautiful, wacky and fun beyond belief, worrying about the plot is beside the point. If you listen carefully to the words, the story will emerge from the music, but Robert Ashley takes the opportunity of a television opera in seven episodes to talk about so many more things than the details of money disappearing from a bank safe. The opera is mythical in scale and scope. An epic poem about Wheatlake City, Convex County, Illinois (imaginary, in other words). What happens along the way, in the crevices, away from the tents, as it should be, is where we find the meaning and the nonmeaning, the joy and the confusion, the boredom and the excitement.We talk about permanence and impermanence, the self (it’s ageless, without coincidence, and without attainment), what people say in bars and at parties, the stages of sunset, the contents of supermarkets, scarves, theosophy, vegetarianism, tattoos, camera shots, boogie-woogie, jokes, cursing, the movies, dogs that speak Spanish, the Chinese, the same man beside himself on a bench, a p’monkey bride, and my breath.The cast of characters includes Ed and Gwyn (the eloping lovers), Dwayne (who has trouble getting the words out), Helen and John (the Lovers from the Home who want to, but can’t get married), Carl (who gets a phone call and water poured on him), Rodney (the bartender who hates Buddy), Baby (who’s bad at the piano), Will and Ida (the sheriff and his wife who figure out how it went down), the five bank tellers who see it differently (Jennifer, Kate, Eleanor, Linda, and Susie), Noel (the justice of peace), Iris (who makes a small appearance), Lucille (whose appearance at another wedding is worth remembering), and Giordano Bruno (whoever he is).Dorian and I were given permission by Ashley back in 2011 to do a reimagining of the music for Perfect Lives. We would keep the text, but create our template (as he called it) to create the music. I decided that it was important to me to memorize the text to allow me freedom of movement. My goal has been to incorporate the performance art aspect of Ashley’s early work with this major masterpiece. Dorian, who is the closest example I know to the astounding virtuosity and creativity of “Blue Gene” Tyranny, and I have listened to the original recordings and built our own ideas of how this opera might sound. While Dorian and our amazing friends improvise over our collectively determined musical route, I sing Ashley’s poetry in my own voice aiming toward his particular brand of singing: not quite song, not quite speech, but both, and neither.Each performance is a fresh discovery of the possibility of this opera. Working on this music for the past three years has changed Dorian and me dramatically. Dorian has learned in this time to make cohesive music across half and full hours on the spot. I grapple daily with how to sing, remember, and understand the words. I hope you enjoy our grand experiment in Perfect Lives.– David Kulma