Originally I had intended it to take the form of a series of String Quartets, after writing a quartet in which the musicians spoke lines from the story. It is available to listen to here. Although I was happy with the piece, an Opera seemed to be most suitable for the story. As I continue to write it, I will post updates here, and the libretto on the following page. Please check back to this page at a future date for updates if this interests you.

Aug. 30, 2022

Hi,

I recently discovered an essay by by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes, titled The Death of the Author. Read It Here.This was a coincidence, I had chosen that title first and foremost as a means of getting around just calling it The Secret Miracle (I’ve never actually been a particularly big fan of that title, perhaps it sounds better in Spanish). In reading the essay, it seemed to have some interesting ideas that might be applicable to the opera, or the libretto. In particular the phrase:

“This was woman herself, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive worries, her impetuous boldness, her fussings, and her delicious sensibility.”

Written by Balzac in his novel Sarrasine. it seemed useful for the section in which Hladik contemplates his imminent death, and considers how until his death he has a form of immortality (of course I would have to change it to be about the male psyche). Barthes’s point in mentioning this passage is analyzing who is voicing this line. Is it the hero of the story? is it Balzac describing - in fairly sexist terms - the psychology of women? Maybe it’s just universal wisdom. Or perhaps (and this goes unmentioned) Balzac is speaking ironically, although that seems unlikely. But the ultimate conclusion Barthes takes away is that it will forever remain a mystery. After a piece of art is created it simply enters into a state of being, with no seeming origin point or definitive owner. So we can now see why Barthes titled this essay in such a way. He does not mean the death of the author, he means to kill the author, or any sort of fixation on the individual creator. As he puts it:

“writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin. Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing.”

So, the question I’m sure you must be wondering is"How is this at all applicable to The Secret Miracle?". Well, in short I think it would be interesting if Hladik served as a symbol for this figurative death of the author. So in a sense the death would refer to physical, and also the death of his interaction with the grand chess game playing out in his head, and throughout the opera he (and to an extent the audience) would grapple with whether or not Hladik is the dreamer running across the sands of a rainy desert, or if the two illustrious families are somehow two sides of his personality, dueling for some prize, which I suppose in this metaphor would be the total engulfing of his mind (which is vast and perhaps infinite).

I had also considered renaming the character of Julius Rothe (the guard tasked with carrying out the execution) to Roland Barthes, as a very on the nose reference to the author. perhaps though that is going too far.

Anyhow, that’s all I had to report at this point, I plan to begin writing more on this page, as it is helpful as a way to express my ideas somewhere so I can better realize them. Also it helps to have a record of my progress.

I’m including here a translation of that passage from the Balzac story into German, as I think it sounds very dramatic, and might work if spoken in Sprechstimme (a sort of cross between speaking and singing). If you happen to speak German, please Contact Me and let me know if something sounds incorrect.

"Das war die Frau selbst, mit ihren plötzlichen Ängsten, ihren irrationalen Launen, ihren instinktiven Sorgen, ihrer ungestümen Kühnheit, ihren Aufregungen und ihrer köstlichen Sensibilität."

- O