Eugene weekly., June 15, 2017, Page 13, Image 13

As she came out of the cloud of depression and anger,
Thigpen looked to Wayte as a writer looks to an editor. For
nearly four years, Wayte and Thigpen worked their way to
the opera’s completion.
“In the beginning, there was technical work in simply
translating Anice’s musical ideas into music notation,
something Anice had very little experience with,” Wayte
says. “But as the opera came closer to completion, I might
make comments that some section needed to be longer, or
shorter, for maximum dramatic effect.”
Wayte offered his perspective on what was working
and what needed to be honed further. “But the musical
inspiration and core dramatic ideas you hear and see in this
piece are all from Anice,” Wayte says.
Until he began working with Thigpen, Wayte had never
helped anyone write an opera. “Nor have I ever written an
opera myself,” he says.
“I’ve written vocal works, but not an opera, and there’s
a big difference,” he says. “That was a new experience —
keeping track of not just the small-scale musical moments
and how they work individually, but also how all those
moments interact to tell a cohesive, long-form dramatic
story. Fortunately, Anice had that story internalized and so
I let her vision on that guide my reactions to the individual
musical moments.”
For Wayte, it’s surprising that this opera exists at all.
“From the moment Anice first had the idea of it, up until
she decided four years later that it should be produced,
there were hundreds of opportunities for the project to get
sidetracked, back-burnered, or to just wither away in the
face of other daily obligations,” he says. “The fact that it
will be performed on stage this month is a testament to
perseverance.”
‘BEING HUMAN,
WONDERFULLY HUMAN’
“The musical styles in the opera are eclectic and reflect
my process and sense of having been a conduit for this
music,” Thigpen says. “Early on, I especially felt I was
working as a scribe rather than a composer. If this were
a textile, it could be a crazy quilt. The various characters
and their primitive energies created their patches. I sewed
them together.”
Wayte adds: “Some of it is very approachable and
tuneful, and some of it is quite dissonant and jarring.”
Haunting melodies course through “Who Among Us”
as voices and cello debate whether to look back. And in
“Dilemma,” sung by Larry Wayte’s wife, soprano Laura
Decher Wayte, we hear Lot’s wife and begin to see into
a world where she makes what choices she can within
punishing limitations.
Laura Wayte’s singing influenced Thigpen to try her
hand at writing an opera in the first place. Thigpen saw the
soprano perform as Madam Mao in Eugene Opera’s 2012
production of Nixon in China.
“Experiencing that opera suggested to me for the first
time that perhaps I should think about studying music
composition,” Thigpen says.
“I have looked at many creative fields in science, music
and literature and usually see densely packed spaces with
very little to no room for innovation or expansion. The
creative pie has been sliced to pieces and is now divided
into the finest of threads. After hearing John Adams’ Nixon
in China, I saw a galaxy of empty space crying out to be
filled by English-speaking opera.”
Flash forward five years, and Thigpen has written The
Woman of Salt around Wayte’s voice.
“I work in a field that can seem old and irrelevant to our
time. But I keep at it,” Laura Wayte says. “And to find that
my singing of music — both old and new — has inspired
this creative endeavor is overwhelming.”
The Woman of Salt also features Thigpen’s daughter,
Paige Carpenter, playing one of the opera’s “Creatures
from Another Realm.”
THE PERFORMANCE OF THE WOMAN OF SALT WILL INCLUDE LIVE MUSIC FROM A CHAMBER ORCHESTRA.
PHOTO BY KELLI MATTHEWS
“My mom describes us as cosmic philosophers —
transcendent beings,” Carpenter says. “What makes the
role difficult is that the two of us are really one being that
can sing with two voices. Whatever we do, we must do
together because we are in a constant duet.”
With a projected run time of 90 minutes, the music
is complex, relevant and charged — these aren’t mere
narcissistic ramblings. This isn’t someone’s amateur night.
At 60, and in composing her first opera ever, Thigpen has
discovered a taproot of genuine musical power.
‘WHAT IS THIS MUSIC
THAT ONLY I CAN HEAR?’
When she began writing The Woman of Salt five years
ago, Thigpen was in a dark place. Triggered to examine an
intensely painful span of time in her life, she knew she had
to bring those feelings in closer — or she might leave this
life altogether.
Thigpen paces the room, recalling her spouse, Halliday,
being sick with worry.
“She’s walking here, back and forth, late at night,”
Thigpen says. “And she’s holding her head and she’s
saying, ‘It didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be
this way.’ And I thought, ‘Yes! That’s what the chorus will
say.’”
Though Thigpen had cared for her girls in the best way
that she could, the trauma had always simmered just below
the surface, Halliday says.
“It didn’t have to be that way,” she says. “He didn’t
have to deprive them of their mother.”
Halliday recalls the time, five years ago, when her
partner of 20-plus years suddenly broke from reality,
falling headlong into rage and depression.
As Thigpen wrestled with her inner terrors, Halliday’s
fears mounted. “Was I making the right decision, leaving
her alone during the day?” Halliday asks. “And would she
come out of it?”
But Halliday never feared for her spouse’s physical
safety.
Thigpen insisted she’d be okay. She told Halliday: “Just
let me be in my sanctuary”: the wind in the trees, the light
on the distant mountains, her piano.
“The music felt like it was crying out from a place of
tremendous pain,” Halliday says.
In addition to music, Thigpen began working with a
licensed therapist.
Notes in the air and, eventually, on the page. A score,
a cast, direction — an audience. And in that process,
Halliday says she’s seen her loved one heal.
“So many people are in spots like this,” she says. “But
if they can tap into their creativity — which is available to
all of us — art is a way to help them through.”
This is a mother’s story, and like so many mothers’
stories — stretching back to the nameless Lot’s wife — it
was nearly buried by time and circumstance.
“The characters have showed up,” Thigpen says. “And
here’s the contract in my mind — it’s my job to tell this
story, and to give her a name.” ■
The Woman of Salt premieres 7 pm Friday, June 23, at the Wildish
Community Theater, 630 Main Street, Springfield. Tickets are available
at wildishtheater.com. The production is directed by Sara E. Widzer and
conducted by Michael Sakir (who recently conducted The Turn of the
Screw for Eugene Opera), with scenic design by Grant Preisser and
costumes by Jonna Hayden.
The cast includes Laura Wayte, Brooke Cagno, Shannon McCaleb,
Bill Hulings, Emma Lynn, Raphaelle Medina, Evan Mitchell and Paige
Carpenter, as well as a chorus. The chamber orchestra includes Kathryn
Brunhaver, Daniel Yim, Chrystal Chu and Nathalie Fortin.
The subject headers in this story are lyrics from The Woman of Salt.
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