Silver City Risen, by Sophonisba (Documentation/Song and Dance|Amnesty 2006)

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

-title- Silver City Risen
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-challenges- Documentation Challenge, Song and Dance challenge
-warnings- Operatic version of history, with added love affairs and tragic death.
-pairings- Within the opera, Teyla/AR-1, Carson/Perna, OMC/OFC, Sheppard/McKay, Weir/Sheppard, and Sheppard/McKay/Teyla
-characters- First season ensemble
-disclaimer- Not mine. Not at all. "This looks familiar" is "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" from The Muppet Movie; "In the darkness I rise" is Kansas' "Icarus II"; "Oracle of Dudohn" is loosely inspired by A. E. Housman's poem "The Oracles." (Most of the other music sounds like a symphony orchestra playing rock music from the latter half of twentieth-century Earth, if anyone's interested.)
-spoilers- First season; a few things about the second season that are general knowledge
-word count- 3033
-summary- In some ways, Sora had the last word, after all.

from An Introduction To Galactic Opera, Volume II:
SILVER CITY RISEN

-introduction-

Vashok Rhenn was one of the few Satedans to survive their world's destruction. The last of the great Satedan prime-singers spent some time touring the worlds with one of the traveling companies, performing classics to raise wealth for his exiled people, before he was sought to play the lead role in a new opera, written in Ringspeech expressly for the purpose of touring.

The opera was the maiden full-length work of the first of the great Genii composers, Ha Sora, based on the recent real-life raising and siege of the City of the Ancestors. It was touted as being based directly on what was known of the Silver City's most recent rise and fall and as containing music from or directly based on that of the Atlanteans, as learnt by Ha Sora, who had long guested with them.

-notes-

Silver City Risen was the first of the traditional grand operas to assign a leading, romantic role to a tenor; as well as reuniting Satedan prime-singer Vashok Rhenn and Hoffan prima donna Ha d'Arla, it inaugurated a new phase for tenor Parn Kalim after an early career of playing comic roles and villains and opened the way to starring roles for entire male voices.

After a first trial in the more secluded areas and a disheartening response from, of all worlds, Daunt, a compromise was reached and the recitative prologue and epilogue written by a farmwife of that world, Kina jen Sardukann. While no other writings of hers survive, the simple prose and blank verse, set to Ha Sora's quiet accompaniment, have been praised as some of the most moving of Middle Period Grand Opera.

One of the earlier showings of the finished version was attended by visiting traders who identified themselves as Terrestrians, belonging to the survivors of the City of the Ancestors. They pronounced the climactic scene startlingly accurate in many respects and demanded to know who had conveyed as much to the librettists and composer. While it is certain that someone did so, Ha Sora and her fellow-writers preserved the anonymity of their source, and it remains unknown to this day.

During most of the initial tour, several incidents, ranging from the inconvenient to the downright embarrassing, occurred to Ha Sora on worlds that were later known as Terrestrian trading partners. It is traditionally assumed that these were the work of elements resentful of the Terrestrians that dared not strike directly at them; one may recall, however, that the Tellurians also gave our galaxy the saying Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

-cast-

MAJOR-CAPTAIN SHEPPARD, duke of Atlantis......................soprano
ELIZABETH WYR, prince of Atlantis.............................coloratura
RODNI MCKAY, chief sage of Atlantis.........................tenor
TEYLA EMMAGAN, prince of Athos and first lady of Atlantis.....treble
CARSON BEKKET, chief medicine man of Atlantis.................alto
SUBCAPTAIN FORD...............................................soprano
SAGES.{.......................................................treble
......{.......................................................mezzas
......{.......................................................mezzo
......{.......................................................alto
......{.......................................................countertenor
SOLDIERS..{...................................................tenors
..........{...................................................contralto
..........{...................................................baritone
..........{...................................................baritone
..........{...................................................bass-baritone
SING, a young sage............................................alto
QAWOOR, a young soldier.......................................coloratura
ATHOSIANS.{...................................................treble
..........{...................................................coloraturas
..........{...................................................soprano
..........{...................................................soprano

KOHN, dictator of the Penates.................................bass
SHERA, warrior of the Penates.................................mezza
RHADED, wizard of the Penates.................................baritone
PENAT SOLDIERS.{..............................................baritones
...............{..............................................bass-baritones

DRUHIN, chancellor of Hoff....................................alto
PERNA, medicine woman of Hoff.................................treble
HOFFANS.{.....................................................coloraturas
........{.....................................................mezzas
........{.....................................................tenors

WRAITH QUEEN(S)...............................................contralto
WRAITH.{......................................................bass-baritones
.......{......................................................basses
ATHAR.........................................................treble
FIRST DUKE OF ATLANTIS........................................baritone

-summary-

Prologue. On a grassy hillside dotted with carved white stones, four people -- ELIZABETH, RODNI, TEYLA, and CARSON -- are seated. They each speak a short monologue, from which it is apparent that they have survived a great disaster and are planning to rebuild, although the import of Rodni opening with "I eventually began talking again, of course" is not readily apparent.

Act 1. MAJOR-CAPTAIN SHEPPARD, singing the Tellurian song "This looks familiar" in his own language, lands a flying machine inside a cave and joins Elizabeth, Rodni, Carson, and the Tellurian expedition as they march deeper into the cave and through the Ring of the Ancestors at its center. The set turns as they march out into the sunken Silver City, and everyone onstage joins in "Wonder of wonders, marvel of marvels."

Rodni discoveres that they cannot remain long underwater, and the DUKE OF ATLANTIS leads the soldiers out through the Ring to go exploring. They come to the world of Athos, where they are promptly attacked by Wraith, who are entirely unfamiliar to the innocent Tellurians. Most of them and the Athosians are captured, including the Athosian female prince Teyla. The Major-captain leads all the survivors back to the Silver City, where he and Elizabeth (with some help) sing "We can't / I must" while the Wraith's Ring is tracked to one high in the skies above their spawning grounds. At last Rodni reveals his latest discovery: flying ships that pass through the Ring. Sheppard's aria "Flight" soon transforms into the trio "Puddle-jumper?", and he and SUBCAPTAIN FORD are off to storm a Wraith citadel and rescue their comrades.

The rescue, an amazing blend of hard-beating polyphonous song most noted for the WRAITH QUEEN's dying aria "The cub you have slain; the sabretooth wakes," is not without its cost; the Major-captain is forced to slay his commanding officer, and it is a somber troop that returns to the Silver City, ready to lead its people out in a desperate exodus.

The city, however, rises from the deeps to greet the dawn of a new day. The joyful Athosians offer an alliance, with their prince's hand in their polygamous marriage ritual; the prince Teyla joins with the two men who rescued her and Rodni the chief sage in "We bind together this day," better known as the "Athosian Wedding Song," in which eventually the entire ensemble joins in.

Act 2. Teyla and her new household come to the land of the Penates, offering trade. The Wraith attack in the middle of it, and while the Penates suddenly produce mighty weapons, they would still have fallen to the Wraith had not the Atlanteans joined in with mightier weapons yet and captured a Wraith. One of the few casualties, however, was SHERA's father; she sends them back through the Ring with her aria "Vengeance" ringing in their ears. As they leave, the last few notes of her aria modulate into the beginning of KOHN's "Unjust"; playing on the anger and envy of the Penates, he leads all of them to shout that they must take the City of the Ancestors for themselves.

The next scene is a split-stage between the Silver City and the land of Hoff. The Hoffans have just discovered their wonder drug; Teyla and her men and Carson pass through to learn more about it, as Elizabeth and DRUHIN on their separate sides of the Ring exhort their sages and medicine men to discover a cure. In the City of the Ancestors, SING and QAWOOR (who had already expressed interest in each other in their parts of "Wonder of wonder, marvel of marvels" and "We bind together this day") begin the rapturous duet "A heart full with love"; this is soon taken up by Carson and PERNA, obviously extremely taken with each other; by Teyla, who uses the same melody to sing of how she, no longer a maid and ripe for marriage, has bound herself to three men whom she could love and three men who, obedient to their codes of honor, have never once pressed attention upon her; by Sheppard and McKay, who sing in alternating lines of their deep, passionate, and obviously hopelessly unrequited love for the other; and by Ford, who sings of his love for his city and his task and his friends and his fear that it cannot all last.

The song ends as Carson and Perna discover a serum that they believe will work, and the Major-captain's household collects their captive Wraith to try it out. He reaches for the test subject, rears back theatrically, and dies upon the spot. The Hoffans rapturously sing "Our main-gauche, shield and blade," even as Carson tries to warn of possible dangers and Perna begins to act ill.

The Hoffans decide to go through with it, even though it will kill half of them. Rodni and Ford return through the Ring to Atlantis in time for the reprise of "A heart full with love": this time, Sheppard and Teyla sing of their love for their people, their desire to fight to preserve them but their unwillingness to let a single one of them die; Druhin joins in, singing of his love for his people, his pride that they will not let fear diminish the sacrifices they have made but will carry on in memory of their dead; Elizabeth, too, joins in, singing of her love for the city and of her love for Major-captain Sheppard, which she dare not express lest it destabilize the city; Ford's lines have changed to a growing certainty that a storm is coming, and Rodni sings of his love for the clear beauty of science, which was and is and shall be, before human beings crawled up from the muck and long after not even their bones remain. Sing and Qawoor and Carson and Perna are left to sing of romantic love, which finishes on the Atlantean side with the young couple pledging their troth and on the Hoffan side with Perna expiring in Carson's arms. He returns through the Ring, flanked by Sheppard and Teyla, as a mighty storm begins.

In the third scene, the Atlanteans and Athosians leave the city as Sheppard, Elizabeth, and Rodni sing "The storm comes" from the wings. Kohn leads the Penates through the ring into an emptied City of the Ancestors, singing "Reclaiming our own again," beginning one of the most confusing scenes of the opera; while Kohn and Elizabeth's duet/argument "We heirs deserve" is justly acclaimed for its brilliance, it is not at all clear why the Atlantean soldiers guarding the gate believed the Penates to be the Athosians; where Teyla, Ford, and Bekket were or how they got back; how Shera and Teyla manage to fight a duel without running into any of the other warriors running around the city; or exactly what Rodni did to defend the city from the storm -- it seems that the librettists there were content to let the characters sing "Deep wizardry begins herein" without bothering to consider a rationale. At the end, after Major-captain Sheppard has killed all the invading Penates save for Kohn, Shera, and RHADED, who flee through the ring, the skies brighten and the Tellurians and Athosians return, bringing with them the Goddess ATHAR. The few remaining in the City of the Ancestors join in her escort's welcoming song of "At last we can see clear;" only Rodni stands aside, clutching his wounded arm and uttering dark warnings.

Dance. While in most operas of the period the dance was a trifling matter, suitable either to give one a break from the plot or to allow the weary opera-goer to leave, stroll about, use the facilities, obtain refreshments, etc., the dance in Silver City Risen is noteworthy in that it helps set the stage for Act 3. Various small parties of "Atlanteans" enter stage center through a Ring, dancing cheerful meetings with people costumed as various famous and now-culled cultures; after each one, the Wraith slowly advance from the wings, making off with the inhabitants of the worlds and at last menacing the now-trembling Atlanteans as they back slowly through the Ring.

Act 3. Athar walks the halls of the City of the Ancestors as if born to it, singing the duet "This fair city" with Major-captain Sheppard as Rodni darts from side to side, desperately trying to persuade at least one person of Athar's ill omen without success. At last, as Athar and Sheppard ascend the topmost tower of Atlantis, Rodni finds voice in the aria "Cherish."

Atop the tower, Athar and Sheppard's voices blend in the sublime "Destiny" until they vanish into bright light. Sheppard alone remains when the light is gone, singing the Tellurian song "In the darkness I rise" as he slowly descends the tower, cutting off after the line "Here they come" (Now they are come) to drop back into Ringspeech with the announcement that the Wraith are on their way to the City. The population of Atlantis scatters to hustle and bustle; Rodni among them, until Sheppard catches him by the arm and begins the duet "Now at last I see clear"/"Clear as mud." The two circle apart and together during it, drawing nearer at the intersection every time until the duet ends with them pressed together from shoulder to thigh, turning their heads to meet in a kiss.

In the next scene, the Wraith, offstage, sing "At last we have you" as the Atlanteans sing "If we can make it work," culminating in a report of the destruction of the remote defense platform. The Atlanteans scatter to finish preparing for nighttime siege; Elizabeth sings the aria "If you looked in my heart"; as she falls silent, Sing and Qawoor take it up as a duet before exiting stage right with their arms around each other, and then Sheppard and Rodni take the next verse, holding their hands out to Teyla and Ford as they sing that no one should have to be alone. Ford shakes his head and resumes patrolling; Teyla joins them as they exit stage left, leaving Elizabeth to reprise the aria as she laments that she must spend her life alone.

The next morning, the chorus of scientists sing "So much to learn, so much to know" as the soldiers man the defenses and report that the Wraith are throwing rocks. Elizabeth decrees that they must hold the Wraith off as long as possible before destroying Atlantis and the Ring; the knowledge they could take from the City of the Ancestors could mean the difference between life and death in their coming exile. As the death of the young suns seeded in the sky is reported, Major-captain Sheppard suggests that they could send an invisible ship to smite the Wraith had they a young sun, that the sages might be able to devise a way to send it unmanned, and that the Penates had been building one.

While the soldiers and sages sing "This bloody road," Elizabeth goes to meet with the Penates, offering the Mother-earth's weapons in return for Rhaded's young sun. Kohn, announcing that the Wraith have already struck Penatia, suggests in return that they give him the weapons they brought with him in return for her miserable life. As he menaces Elizabeth, Shera comes up to report to him; when he turns to listen to his subordinate, Rhaded shoots him in the back. In a reprise of "Vengeance," they inform Elizabeth that with the delivery of the Mother-earth's weapons, they will be quits.

Elizabeth returns with the sun in time for the climactic medley, in which the sages decree the sun too young for their purposes and work to make it greater; some of the Wraith invade the city, and the soldiers and Athosians go to defend it from them; the control method for the remote flying blows up, and Major-captain Sheppard announces "Well, I'm off," and departs for the wings, his voice joining that of the soldiers in, of all things, the traditional fey Satedan song "Oracle of Dudohn"; the defenders, although taking many Wraith with them, slowly fall, among them Qawoor (defending her new husband), Sing (defending the other non-soldiers in his group), and Ford (defending everyone); the Wraith Queen, aloft, sings of her impending victory; Sheppard carries "Oracle of Dudohn" by himself, now, as the sages and other Athosians run back and forth carrying bundles through the Ring and reprising "So much to learn," the few remaining soldiers and Carson sing status updates, telling of the new wave of Wraith ships coming in behind the current besiegers, Elizabeth sings her defiance and intention to carry on somehow, and Rodni counts down until he, Sheppard's voice, and that of the Wraith Queen abruptly cut off.

The song of the others, however, continues, as a silent Rodni appoints himself the rearguard and caretaker of the destroying device while the rest abandon the City of the Ancestors. A coil on the device goes dim, and he moves to reconnect it as he is at last left alone. He barely gets it working when a singing Wraith enters the room and is upon him; Rodni raises his weapon, somehow causes it to fall apart, and is nearly slain when Teyla, who had been presumed dead earlier, bursts into the room, kills it, and sings the aria "We will remember you" before taking Rodni's hand and leading him through the Ring, just before the destroying device activates.

Epilogue. After the last fall of the curtain, it parts again on the same hillside where the opera began, where Elizabeth and Carson and Teyla in successive monologues tell that although the explosion was great enough for the Wraith to believe the City wrecked beyond redemption, in truth it only truly destroyed the Ring -- the only Ring that could have been made to lead back to the Mother-earth -- and the surrounding area, sinking the City back into the sea. But those of the people who managed to escape are surviving and thriving, here in this hidden place that they have found, and they have brought with them hope for the future; as Teyla lays her hands protectively over her stomach, she tells that they brought with them the knowledge to one day make the City of the Ancestors rise again, not only through the seas, but through the air, to fly through the airless deeps of heaven as of old it flew from the Mother-earth. During the monologues, the other surviving Atlanteans -- Tellurian and Athosian -- have slowly joined them onstage; now at last they sing the finale "We will rise again," each of the four main survivors having their own solo, and then joined by the voices of the fallen to build to one last mighty chord of sound.

Comments

[mercurydraconix.livejournal.com]

you rock hardcore.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[fullygoldy.livejournal.com]

Gods! I would totally love to hear the score of this! REally, truly, fantastic. This would be a great multi-media project!

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//I would totally love to hear the score of this!//

SO WOULD I.

(Of course, I can always listen to "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday," but I'm quite sure it would sound very different out of a barrel-chested soprano with fifty years of voice training to full orchestral accompaniment.) ^_^

And it would be a great project... have we any burgeoning Peter Schickeles among us?

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Things I love! taken at random:

1) the castrati (Sheppard=soprano! I will never stop finding this funny), and RODNI as the first great role for an entire adult male. Manly, yes he is!

2) I keep trying to spot the songs. I assume "Wonder of wonder, marvel of marvels" is from Fiddler on the Roof -- are there any others not in your notes? I fear "Cherish" is this one (http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/cherish/cherish.htm), which is . . . hard for me to hear in Rodney's voice.

3) Penates=Genii! Latin jokes of GLEE!

4) "Rodni sings of his love for the clear beauty of science, which was and is and shall be, before human beings crawled up from the muck and long after not even their bones remain." That's my boy.

5) The confusions of Act 2 Scene 3. Ah, opera. Ah, scriptwriters.

There should definitely be a fanmix for this. And picture! And vids!

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your commentary!

1) //(Sheppard=soprano! I will never stop finding this funny)//

Hey, he's the lead male role. The leading male almost always gets the highest voice, so it'll carry over everyone else.

(I actually came up with the Satedan castrati for a throwaway line where Ronon confesses "When I was little, I wanted to be a mounted cowherd when I grew up. Either that or a prime-singer like Vashok Rhenn, but my voice wasn't good enough to justify the operation" and Sheppard and McKay are both thinking "Um... okay... not going there"... but although a version of that made it into the extended version of "Far and Far From Land," it seemed too funny to me not to go into more fully.)

As for Rodney... it's silly enough to have someone with a full beard being sung by a castrato, but for somebody who's balding... (granted, Giulio Cesare certainly did.) and I have this vague mental image that, since I posited Sora as the first of the great Genii composers, they don't exactly have castrati of their own (seriously, you'd have to be relatively confident of not losing ninety-five percent of the population to be willing to produce them on a regular basis) and she's starting to write roles that Genii could sing.

2) Actually, for all her rampant plagiarism here, I'm postulating that she can actually compose in her own right (we've certainly never seen anything to suggest that she can't, and it is one of the things that can be done while locked in a small box).

I've never actually seen "Fiddler on the Roof," but I'm presuming that both of us lifted the idea from the Russian folktale where the tsar tells the young man to go find him a wonder of wonders and marvel of marvels.

The operatic convention that I'm familiar with is to refer to songs by their first line... while I was sort of imagining "Cherish" as the Association's lyrics translated into gatespeech and set to something that sounds rather like Journey, "This bloody road" as a relatively straight translation of "Invincible," and "If you could look in my heart" being a filk to the tune of "Omoide ni Dakarete," the great thing about text is that you can just as easily picture the songs as sounding like, oh, Bonnie Tyler, the Yellow Monkey, and t.a.t.u.

And Rodney's torchsong is supposed to be sort of embarrassing and uncharacteristic -- this is an opera, and one in which Sheppard is singing out his feelings in full range of everyone else onstage at the time.

3) ^____^
Well, if they're going to canonically throw us Ancient~Latin (although I figure it's probably closer to one of the other Italic languages -- I'd be tremendously amused if it turned out to be proto-Oscan), I'm going to play with it.

4) Oh, yes. I think that's probably one of the things anyone who ever talked with him for any length of time couldn't help but be exposed to.

5) This is also, of course, the one area where Sora would have the most vested interest in presenting a... more palatable... version of the truth for public consumption.

And oh, yes, I wish I could at least draw -- I have this mental image of Rhenn being tall and spare and fifty-odd, and Ha d'Arla built along the traditional lines for opera singers, and this little thirteen-year-old singing her heart out as Teyla... not to mention the properties department's rendition of puddlejumper.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

the extended version of "Far and Far From Land

Point me to it! I can't find you on Wraithbait.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

I put a link or two in the sga_flashfic cut, but it's here (http://sokkvabekk.150m.com/sophonisba/faffl.html) if you missed it.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

I think that`s a lovely choice for Rodni`s aria! Although, I sort of hear it more ike Belle (http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/notredamedeparis/belle.htm) from Notre-Dame-de-Paris. And again in English, (http://www.lyricsdownload.com/notre-dame-de-paris-belle-english-version-lyrics.html) though it lacks some of the quiet finesse of the French.

[kiezh.livejournal.com]

Wow. I want to see this opera! And read the story of its creation. Also, I bet there's fanfic based on it on some Pegasus worlds.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

I would shell out the money for a ticket (and I'm currently unemployed).

I don't exactly have the story of its creation, but I do have a half-finished story about the first time Atlanteans saw it...

Fanfic. Dear heaven. Of course there would be. Especially after a few decades.

[kbk]

This rocks so hard. Seriously, it's just aces.

Though I have to admit, one of the things I'm thinking is that there's never any big parts for my voice... heh.

It took me a while to parse this bit:
The song ends as Carson and Perna discover a serum that they believe will work, and the Major-captain's household collects their captive Wraith to try it out. He reaches for the test subject, rears back theatrically, and dies upon the spot.
For some reason, I thought 'he' meant Sheppard, and 'test subject' the Wraith; I had to actively recall the episode to work out what was really going on. I mean, that's probably just me being freakish and weird.

These lines made me squee So Hard:
the import of Rodni opening with "I eventually began talking again, of course" is not readily apparent.

by Teyla, who uses the same melody to sing of how she, no longer a maid and ripe for marriage, has bound herself to three men whom she could love and three men who, obedient to their codes of honor, have never once pressed attention upon her; by Sheppard and McKay, who sing in alternating lines of their deep, passionate, and obviously hopelessly unrequited love for the other

Rodni sings of his love for the clear beauty of science, which was and is and shall be, before human beings crawled up from the muck and long after not even their bones remain.

"Now at last I see clear"/"Clear as mud."

And I'm gonna go away now, because I'm feeling weirder than usual.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

What are you, a contralto?

Hm. When I put it up elsewhere, I'll change it to "Hoffan test subject," which should clarify.

//the import of Rodni opening with "I eventually began talking again, of course"//

His next line is "It's hard to let people know that they're about to die horribly before they actually do so if you don't yell." ^_^

The science lyric -- even snarky and skewering can't be taking potshots all the time.

//"Now at last I see clear"/"Clear as mud."//

A lot of opera lyrics make about as much sense (and have as much rhetorical value) as that, once you get right down to it. ^_^

Once again, thank you for naming parts you specially liked.

Review

[(Anonymous)]

This is superb. One could very well believe such an opera had been written.

--Silverthreads

Re: Review

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the compliment!

[ceteramisto.livejournal.com]

I love this. Of course what I would really love to find is the Pegasus Galaxy's version of Anna Russell giving Silver City Risen the same treatment that Anna Russell gave to Wagner's Ring Cycle.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

"So there are the six coordinates that determine a location in space, the point of origin, and this other value that... does... something.... I'm really not making this up, you know."

[briar_pipe]

John==Gonzo. Oh my, I just can't. Stop. Laughing. *dies*

Your construction here is beautiful. I mean, how do you stage Atlantis for the, um, stage? It's a complicated question, and your answer is brilliance. I was especially touched by Rodney's silence at the end.

The scriptwriter's confusion just make this seem more like real history - everyone's titles and name changes in particular were very amusing.

Someone should make a soundtrack using the original source songs, at least. Then maybe someone should write lyrics, and... okay, I just want to see this staged. *is sad*

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//John==Gonzo. Oh my, I just can't. Stop. Laughing.//

He so is, too.

I figure Pegasus theater must have a standard convention for representing Gate travel, although I'm not at all sure how they'd depict the puddlejumper (in a low-tech performance, I think the singers might step into a prop with a framework top, pick it up by handles, and walk off).

Thank you for the compliments!

The silence was one of the elements that sprang instantly to mind when I first thought that I would write it to match the rumors the Atlanteans spread, which would of course not include the Daedalus.

Some of the name changes were meant to be the result of the opera initially being written in an entirely different alphabet -- although I expect that if he were writing in the Ancient's alphabet, Rodney would spell his name so that it would clearly not rhyme with the first syllable of Teyla's, and then make endless fun of John for clearly signing himself "Joan."

Also, I expect very few (if any) of the peoples of Pegasus have enough military officers to need the sort of organization that produces majors, lieutenants, and four kinds of general.

I want to see it staged too! ;_;

[ellex42.livejournal.com]

*groans* This would be soooo cool.

I'm imagining the music as kind of Andrew Lloyd Webber-ish - you know, very Phantom, only maybe with Wagnerian and Mozart influences in places, because the plot reminds me alternately of The Ring-cycle and The Magic Flute. But maybe, also, a little Sondheim as well.

My first thought, upon seeing Sheppard cast as a soprano, was that it would be a female singer's trouser role...then I realized you were implying a castrati...I don't know which I'd like better. Especially after reading in the comments that the Genii probably wouldn't have castrati, at least at first. Also, if it was a trouser role, I could (maybe) sing it (waaaay out of practice - I used to be a lyric soprano, but my voice has deepened a teensy bit and oddly, become stronger).

I can almost imagine "I'm going to go back there someday" sung in operatic style...almost.

I think the thing I love most is the implied circle of the plot, with Rodni's beginning line "I eventually began talking again, of course."

If someone came up with the music, I'd write the lyrics - seriously, I would.

Oh, one more thing: you rule.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the compliments!

//I'm imagining the music as kind of Andrew Lloyd Webber-ish - you know, very Phantom, only maybe with Wagnerian and Mozart influences in places, because the plot reminds me alternately of The Ring-cycle and The Magic Flute.//

For some reason, I was really strongly reminded of The Magic Flute (very first opera I ever saw) while writing this. I think it must be the whole archetype thing; any summary strips away many of the individual personality quirks that give it meaning. Also, the plot of Die Zauberfloete, taken from start to finish, makes no particular sense.

I was sort of picturing a castrato, but honestly, it's not as if I have any aural memory to properly compare... ^_^ I now want to actually see this so badly.

//I can almost imagine "I'm going to go back there someday" sung in operatic style...almost.//

Same here... almost.

//I think the thing I love most is the implied circle of the plot//

Initially I was planning to have the big final number transition out of the battle montage in Act III, and then I was just going to do an epilogue, but the epilogue was going so long that I decided to move half of it to a prologue instead. ^_^

//If someone came up with the music, I'd write the lyrics - seriously, I would.//

I think that might be the nicest compliment anyone's ever paid me.

Thank you once more for all your comments.

[ellex42.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally enough, my first opera was Die Zauberflote as well. It remains one of my favorites, although you're right - the plot doesn't really hang together well, even as an allegory. The music is pretty, though.

I think the closest you can get to the sound of a castrato is a counter-tenor. That's one of the things I love about listening to the King's Singers - that amazing, clear tone they achieve that I'm so very envious of.

Now I think I'll have to see if my local library has a copy of The Muppet Movie so I can listen to that song again and try to imagine it in operatic style...

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

This is SO AWESOME. I can totally see it, too, with all of the design anachronisms in that Elizabethans doing Julius Ceasar in doublets kind of way. You even wrote in a decent alto part! I loved the way they shoehorned everyone into cultural terms the audience could relate too, like making Elizabeth the prince of Atlantis.

One question: Who are Sing and Qawoor supposed to be?

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

I originally meant Ford to be an alto part, too, and then I said to myself "Self, wtf? He's the ingenu," and made him a soprano instead.

(A number of the cultural terms are the result of me applying my experience with translation programs to my thoughts about Gatespeech ~ Alteran ~ Latin: seriously, "leader-of-a-people" and "military leader" translate to princeps and dux fairly neatly, and so...)

//One question: Who are Sing and Qawoor supposed to be?//

Back when I first started thinking up SGA stories, I said "Hmm, multinational expedition" to myself and promptly started making up characters to fill in the gaps -- such as the Spanish and Portuguese linguists, the Indian biologist, the Chinese neurologist/cyberneticist, the Dutch sysadmin/cook, and the Canadian Sikh happily married couple (who, being Sikhs, naturally have the surnames Singh and Kaur).

So far, Nile Kaur has had a walk-on role in the hat story and been a plot device in the seal story, while poor Dr. Singh has an envisioned relatively noble death and no given name as yet, so -- especially since I'd established Kaur as being an opera fan -- I threw the two of them into my opera, what with canon not establishing any couples in the first year of more than most-of-an-episode's duration (unless you count Elizabeth and Simon, and he's not there) and me wanting an uncomplicated set of lovers to contrast with Our Heroes.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Right. So... professionally trained singer here, offereing to sing on the sound track of the filk totally for free, if someone scores it. ^_^

Female mezzo to high soporano so... Teyla and/or Liz?

Anyway, yes, totally in!!

This truly is phenominal, I could see it all, hear the marching beat, the strident six part harmonies, the fury of the "Genii" to soaring hope of Elizabeth, the guilded, ringing, clear notes of the Silver City. Oh my God, and the Wraith Queen hanging above the stage (top right for the most power) like the Queen of the Night, and John slowly rising into the air - step by step along a black staircase that rises from midstage left to back right, in total profile, a young sun crandled like a child in his arms. Nothing more than a black shadow against a red and orange scrim.

And Rodni, down centre, singing to the glowing coil, and Teyla behind, each picked out in a single cold spot.

And the high note, the single ringing blend of three voices, the flash of the young sun in John's hand as he hurls it towards the queen.

And the slow motion fumbling as Teyla drags Rodni out of a spot that slides to follow them but cannot quite catch up.

You take my breath away. Thank you.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//professionally trained singer here, offereing to sing on the sound track of the filk totally for free, if someone scores it.//

I shall now bounce around like a small girl and squeal, despite the fact that I don't know anybody who would score it. *wry smile*

//Female mezzo to high soporano so... Teyla and/or Liz?//

When I get around to putting this up on my website, I'm going to note that a translation error in the first edition used "treble" for "triphilla" and "coloratura" for "clara," despite the obvious fact that Pegasus "triphilla" maps almost exactly to Tellus "coloratura"...

... which is a long-winded way of saying that Teyla, Perna, and Athar are the non-chorus roles that'd need to hit the really high notes, so even if your range doesn't go quite that high you could sing Elizabeth, the OFC young lover, Ford, Shera/Sora, or Sheppard if you could handle the mental disconnect.

And... wow. I'm glad that the mental images are coming through so clearly for you, even as I am slightly bemused at some of your imagery.

So... thank you, and you are very welcome indeed.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Well, when they DO score it, you know where to find me! *Laughs* Yeah, I could totally play John! I love trouser roles (even though I know he`s not really one).

Bemused at the imagery? I dunno - it just came to me like that, all fully formed.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

That's the way the best imagery DOES -- the bemusement is mostly at places where it doesn't match the imagery that arrived fully formed in my head, and I wonder what caused it to arrive differently in yours. (They're not bad differences; just different.)

[electricdesire.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely beautiful. I could never figure out what the plot structure of the first season reminded me of, then I read this and everything clicked into place. It plays like a traditional opera, with some minor exceptions. The descriptions of the songs and stage directions make it really vivid, and reading this felt like I was reading the playbook at the theatre, glancing towards the stage and imagining where the characters would be at certain moments. Simply wonderful.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

(The structure really is sort of traditional-drama, isn't it? I was surprised at how little I had to do to make it fit a proper Aristotelean canon.)

And I'm glad that it worked for you -- I kept envisioning the scenes in my mind and doing my best to describe the action without being completely pedantical.

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Rock on. I'm a female alto who routinely hits high to midrange tenor and *loves* patter songs, so if you need a Rodney and can't get a guy, give me a try. I filk and I love to sing other people's filk. I'm more of a Gilbert and Sullivan voice than a high opera, but hey.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. I... thank you. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed that people want to give this more depth than my synopsis, as I wouldn't even begin to know how to go about doing something like that.

You filk? Do you perhaps have some of your work online? (I love filk. I just can't sing worth a wooden nickel.)

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. Not that much. Sort of scattered about, really. Most of them I have in a folder somewhere. There's a moderately crappy recording of one filk in my memories, and a silly off the cuff thing in there too.

http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=grey_bard&keyword=Filk&filter=all

That's not my serious voice. Or even me trying to sing very well. That's... me doing my fake-drunk drinking song voice while trying very hard not to laugh.

There's a better recording of two of my filks recorded at a con floating around somewhere on the internet. If you give me your email address, I can hook you up with a number of my other filks once I dig them out.

Anyway, if you want an audition of any kind, just say the word. I'm kind of flexible and sound different depending on what effect I'm going for.

[grey-bard.livejournal.com]

Wait, make that three filks in the memories. Found one sitting in my email account and posted it.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

You've really managed to capture my imagination.

Here's my way of thanking you.

Silver City Risen - Set Designs (http://pics.livejournal.com/losyark/gallery/0000cx7g)

I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm... honored, flattered, gratified... and all these lovely designs! (Some of them look almost exactly like what I was thinking of, and some are different, but hey, revival tour... and I'm mildly impressed that someone had made the effort to try to discover what the First Duke's name had been, even if they did get it wrong. ^_^)

One thing startled me about your notes for III.ix -- in the libretto there, the Wraith was singing, and Teyla was singing, and Rodni hadn't opened his mouth since III.viii, when his singing cut off at the same time as the puddlejumper transmission.

And I love the blue-slowly-washing-to-blood-red for the background of the ballet, and your idea of the control room balcony moving in and out depending on the scene makes so much sense, and I think I need to go read your take on III.iii now.

Thank you again. I think I need a, um, fan now. Yes.

Re: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Ditto! I think this thing is just so amazing, and I can`t get it out of my head. I walk down the street humming "deeeeeeeeeestiny".

I figured even if they did discover Sumner`s proper name, then I think the poetic theme of the Summer ending, the Great Harvest/Culling starting... I think it`s appropriate to misspell Sumner`s name to make him a sort of broader emobdiment of a metephore.

Hm. And now I wonder if that`s what Martin Gero and the other writers were aiming for.

One thing startled me about your notes for III.ix -- in the libretto there, the Wraith was singing, and Teyla was singing, and Rodni hadn't opened his mouth since III.viii, when his singing cut off at the same time as the puddlejumper transmission.

*blinks* *re-reads the original summary* *blinks*

See; this is a case of me not reading carefully enough, and I realized though I really felt the need for Rodni to have one last, mourning song - for John, for Atlantis, for everything they thought they`d discover and everything they lost - he`s supposed to be mute.

*headdesk* Bad Vega.

I just really felt that the powerful, strong climax needed a soft, mouring denument (sp?) before we came back with the triumphant chorus of the survivors and the dead. This is me re-writing you again, and I apologize. Definately a remix fic.

I saw a lighting effect like the one I envisioned for the ballet in a play once - the play was "Blood Relations", a Susan Pollack drama and hers are always the best psychological mind-fucks. When the main actress, who is an actress pretending to be Lizzie Boarden as the real Lizzie Borden talks her through her life, in an effort to understand Lizzie`s motivations and whether she really did kill her father and step-mother, so the actress can PLAY Lizzie acurately in a play she`s rehearsing for... (like I said, mindfuck)...

Anyway, when the actress goes up the stairs to take her fourty whacks at the step-mother, the whole wall, which I thought was a flat and turned out to be a really well-lit scrim, went transparent and we could see their shadows through it and just as Lizzie raised the axe, the whole set glowed RED. It was AMAZING.

And yes, Gone With The Wind the Musical was just so SATURATED with colour, it was inspiring. Especially since the last three plays I`d seen back home were so MONOCHORMATIC they left me absolutely parched for colour. (I mean, who does the Scottish Play with no RED for god`s sake?)

*fans you with the sheaf of photocopies I messed up when making the designs; there are a lot*

Re: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//I figured even if they did discover Sumner`s proper name, then I think the poetic theme of the Summer ending, the Great Harvest/Culling starting... I think it`s appropriate to misspell Sumner`s name to make him a sort of broader embodiment of a metaphor.

Hm. And now I wonder if that`s what Martin Gero and the other writers were aiming for.//

I'd want to believe so... but the more the show goes on, the more I become convinced that it only taps into great archetypes by accident (or possibly by the actors' work).

//I just really felt that the powerful, strong climax needed a soft, mourning denument (sp?) before we came back with the triumphant chorus of the survivors and the dead.//

Well, it does... it's just that this is Sora's opera written for the consumption of Pegasus natives, and thus there was never any chance that it would not be given to Teyla.

(I chose the first line "We will remember you" in order to evoke Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You (http://www.sarahmclachlan.com/discography/lyrics.jsp?song_id=780)" [don't ask why the OFFICIAL SITE can't spell "lose" -- just don't], which I first encountered in a Fushigi Yuugi music vid (http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=3644) that blew me away [even if Hsien Lee's disavowing it now], although I was also picturing it with elements of the chorus of her "I Will Not Forget You," Oomori Kinuko's "Wasurenaide (http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/bgc/bgcfrget.htm)," Les Miserables' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," and Carole King's "Now and Forever." Which probably tells you more about my mind than you really wanted to know.)

See, the John-and-Rodney Show is fun, the John-and-Rodney Show is distracting, the John-and-Rodney Show has inspired many many good fics and vids and will doubtless inspire many more, and I expect Sora thoroughly enjoyed dragging it in for a B-plot (I know I did)... ^_^

... but, to get embarrassingly meta here for a while, the impact of the first season's worth of Atlantis and the reports of its destruction on the Pegasus Galaxy would almost have to be something on the order of "Humans came from the lost homeworld of the Ancestors and woke their City, and for a brief moment some of us believed with them that the Wraith could be defeated. Of course it was not so, and of course they went down in flames..." and SCR is saying "... but that's no reason not to try. Maybe you know you're licked before you even begin (or maybe not, if you're from the Mother-earth), but you begin anyway and you see it through. No matter what. And who knows; you might even make a difference." There's a reason Hoff is sitting anachronistically in the middle of Act II, and I put it there before I consciously realized that it was doing the same thing as Chapter Ten of To Kill a Mockingbird. (At least I think it was Chapter Ten; it's been more years than I care to remember since we were analyzing the Saga of the Rabid Dog as Synecdoche.)

//(I mean, who does the Scottish Play with no RED for god`s sake?)//

Gah. I can see that they might have been trying for depressing, but it seems as if it would only achieve boring. I saw a version of Midsummer Night's Dream where Athens was very monochromatically '20s-New-York, but that was so that the fairies would be an explosion of color a la Munchkinland. (I don't suppose you saw the version of The Adventures of Pericles that the Stratford Festival did a few years back? That and last year's London Assurance were thoroughly rife with color and design and everything.)

Thank you for the breath of fresh air. ^_^

Re: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Well, it does... it's just that this is Sora's opera written for the consumption of Pegasus natives, and thus there was never any chance that it would not be given to Teyla.

Ah! I see where I made my error... I just assumed it would be Rodni because he had been the one to loose the most in the battle - not only Atlantis and the Duke, but also the science he loved so much and the lover he had just found. But you`re right, Teyla is tha representation of the Pegasus Natives among the Earthers, and as such it would be more touching to the audience to have her finish the opera.

I forgot the audience, thinking it was me, when of coruse it was never intended for my consumption, as an Earther.

And now I have visions of the opera touring to Earth five or six years after the declassification of the Program. Hm. I wonder what it`s reception would be? Especially with the marriage/relationship things between men and DADT on Earth. People would want to see it, and there would be such an uproar about respeciting authorial intent and point-of-view interpretation, and accepting that in other cultures the social normatives are different.

The military still won`t be happy with Rodni and John. They may insist that the Clarity Duet be cut out, to the horror of the fangirls, but would probably be okay with the Athosian Marriage because that would show their catering to other cultures (they did it for Teyla`s sake) and the honourable-nes of the military because they never took advantage of their husbandly rights.

Les Miserables' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,"

Yes, yes, that`s exactly what I was thinking about when I read about the epilogue!

"Humans came from the lost homeworld of the Ancestors and woke their City, and for a brief moment some of us believed with them that the Wraith could be defeated. Of course it was not so, and of course they went down in flames..." and SCR is saying "... but that's no reason not to try. Maybe you know you're licked before you even begin (or maybe not, if you're from the Mother-earth), but you begin anyway and you see it through. No matter what. And who knows; you might even make a difference."

Yes, yes yes!! That`s exactly what I got from it. This is Sora`s rallying call to the people of Pegasus.

(I don't suppose you saw the version of The Adventures of Pericles that the Stratford Festival did a few years back?

I meant to, but I was hip-deep in my own production at the time, and writing my thesis. I`m sure I don`t have to tell you how life-consuming they both are. Geordie Johnson was in that one, wasn`t he? Replaced an actor who busted his leg, or something? I don`t quite recall. I really like him as an actor, saw him as Mr. Darcy at Stratford back when I was in grade school. I was the only school child there willingly, I am SUCH a geek.

So does this mean you live in Ontario? Cause, hey, cool we should go do a show and coffee.

Re: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//I forgot the audience, thinking it was me,//

Which isn't helped by the fact that on a meta level, it is, or I'd hardly have posted it to sga_flashfic. ^_^

//And now I have visions of the opera touring to Earth five or six years after the declassification of the Program.//

And half the SGC goes to see it. Oh. Or better yet, Madison's class, for a unit.

//People would want to see it, and there would be such an uproar about respecting authorial intent and point-of-view interpretation, and accepting that in other cultures the social normatives are different.//

There totally would be. And at least one academic type would wind up getting a paper out of it.

//The military still won`t be happy with Rodni and John. They may insist that the Clarity Duet be cut out,//

They can't very well do that and pass it -- besides, this is opera. Die Walküre is one of the classic examples of what you can get away with in an opera, and in that as in this, the person transgressing societal boundaries dies at the end.

What the USAF might do is request that the Major-captain not be presented as one of their officers, and perhaps inquire whether his name could be changed to avoid casting aspersions on Lt. Col. Sheppard.

(Of course, by the time the program is declassified and five or six more years have gone by, the issue may well be moot in one way or another.)

//This is Sora's rallying call to the people of Pegasus.//

With a few sly digs here and there; I expect she felt very ambivalent about the Atlanteans for a very long time.

But in the end -- it's worth doing, and I imagine that was how they managed to get the Satedan and Hoffan stars.

//So does this mean you live in Ontario?//

Indiana, these days. I grew up in Michigan, and my family used to take a weekend every year to drive up to Stratford and see some of the plays; last year we did it for old times' sake, although it took rather longer when starting from Indianapolis. ^_^

Re: I LOVE YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can so see Maddie sitting in the front row, leaning over to whisper to a friend, "He doesn't look anything like Uncle Mer."

Next time you head up for a show, let me know. You'd have to drive through my hometown to get to Stratford from the states - we should do a show and chats.

ETA

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

I put the revised version (http://sokkvabekk.150m.com/sophonisba/scr.html) up on my website, if anyone's interested.