He is especially known for his many text settings. Reviewing the recording of his cantata, The Outermost House, John Story of Fanfare magazine wrote: “Ronald Perera is among the finest living combiners of words and music.”

Mr. Perera has been the recipient of awards or fellowships from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation, and Harvard University. His music has been performed by many prestigious conductors, soloists, and ensembles in this country and abroad. His music is published by E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Boosey and Hawkes, Music Associates of New York, his own Pear Tree Press Music Publishers, and is recorded on the Albany, CRI, and Opus One labels.

Mr. Perera retired in 2002 from a thirty-year teaching career at Smith College, where he was the first Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

SOME THOUGHTS ON COMPOSING MY OPERA S.
By Ronald Perera

The piano-vocal score of my opera S. has been new-issued this fall by ECS. S., based on the novel by John Updike and composed between 1993 and 1995, is one of three operas of mine written in collaboration with the librettist Constance Congdon. And it is one of two operas written with the collaboration of theatre director Mark Harrison. Collaborating with an established playwright and director helped me be certain that theatrical and production values would be an integral part of the opera’s creation. Before I began composing the music for a scene I had a vision of how it would look on the stage and where the dramatic focus would be.

To me the most important element of opera is the narrative arc of a work. I ask myself how each part contributes to moving us forward through the story, how every part of every scene is directed towards some larger dramatic goal. Within this “goal-directness” there are, of course, moments of relative repose, reflection, or stasis, particularly in arias and certain other set pieces. But the chief task of the composer is to create memorable music that draws the listener in immediately and does not let go of the listener until the final curtain. Whether I have succeeded at that task is up to others to judge, but it was the challenge I kept before me.

It took me two years to compose S., during which the characters of the opera grew to take up temporary residence in my head. I felt that I was getting to know their habits of thought and expression, and of course their musical history. After the first few scenes I just knew how “Sarah” or “Alinga” or “Durga” would sing their texts. Their characteristic ways of expressing themselves were captured early in melodic or rhythmic motives that could now be elaborated and transformed.

My method of composing is to begin with a sketch of an opening idea. This is the most intuitive part. If the idea is good, more ideas will flow as a consequence, until the shape of the whole passage or section begins to come clear. Then begins a succession of refinements—of going over the music again and again—each time making adjustments. This is the craft part. As a person with an obsessive bent, I find it very difficult to stop making these adjustments, so a piece is never really ever finished because it is never perfect. Then performers bring their own craft and experience to the music, making occasional suggestions for adjusting the pitch, rhythm, tempo, or dynamic of a particular passage to enhance its effect. Composers never stop learning from performers; the relationship is yet another part of the collaborative experience.

I have always been attracted to vocal music, whether music for solo voice or chorus, because I love setting words to music. Writing a large-scale opera provides a composer with opportunities to write for every possible vocal combination. It is at once the most difficult and the most rewarding of projects. It is not surprising that the most performed opera composers have tended to specialize in the genre. We are in a period of growth in the United States for opera as a percentage of market share of classical music performance. American composers are being commissioned as never before to write operas. So perhaps the difficulties of undertaking this art form are still worth the risk. We shall see.