Intro | The Text | Reading Rilke as Music | Interaction | Reading Rilke as Performer
The
Singer’s Voice: Reading Rilke as a Performer
As should now be clear, the aim of the multimedia "reading"
in Vis-à-vis was to suggest the shifting psychological relationship
between the subject who narrates the story and the nameless woman who
is ultimately the subject of this narration. But this relationship is
only fully realized in live performance. Indeed, because the score dictates
that the narrator of the piece is also a woman, it is the female voice
that forges the delicate relationship between what we might call the two
subject positions of the drama, that of the observer and the observed.
Our paper concludes, then, with a few remarks from the singer herself,
reflecting on what it is like to experience Rilke as a performer.
To sing a dramatic work like Vis-à-vis is to face the same challenges
one encounters performing any music with text. In performing the vocal
part, I am expected to embody the words in some way, to understand not
only the character of the story but also her situation. In Vis-à-vis,
the issue of character becomes interesting, not only because of the frequent
changes in “tone of voice”—speaking or singing, English
or German—but also because of the vocal range. The part spans over
two octaves, and those registers seem to suggest something about the psychological
state of the first person who narrates the story, from deep resignation
to hysteria and back again.
The electronic score supports the live singing in more than one respect.
First, many of the processes and sounds in the piece, as mentioned above,
were originally inspired by recording sessions in which I improvised readings
of the text, both as recitation and as song. (Indeed, some of the score’s
vocal melodies were ultimately transcriptions of those earlier, improvised
sessions, thus suggesting that, even at a very early stage, the composition
of the piece was essentially collaborative.) The total soundscape reinforces
the live singing, then, simply at the level of timbre, for its sounds,
however modified, are essentially based on my own voice. But the sense
of support far exceeds this color similarity. More gratifying for me as
a performer is the way the interactive system can actually promote a certain
kind of singing, or, at least, modify my behavior. In the second half
of the piece, for example, after the crucial turning point (“Aber
die Frau”), the system is designed at points to recognize sudden
changes in amplitude. If I forget about bel canto lines, and exaggerate
the discontinuity of the phrase, a marvelous thing happens: suddenly,
I am surrounded by a whole roomful of voices, my voices, in fact, keening
(like a Greek chorus, perhaps?) in sympathetic horror at the vision I
am about to experience. On the other hand, the system’s “obstinance”
can leave me entirely exposed. In one performance, my phrase might be
completed by a clangorous bell-like punctuation, the result of the real-time
“listener” hearing, and reconfiguring, the formants of my
vowels. In another performance, the system will have turned a deaf ear,
so to speak, and my phrase might be uttered, by contrast, in complete
silence. The uncertainty has a salutary effect on the performance event.
Not only does the changing relation force me, as a singer, into the present
tense, but the organic change in the electronic landscape encourages me
to listen to the sounds anew, adjusting my phrasing accordingly.
Of course, it must be emphasized that this sort of organic adjustment
is the result of two performers, not just one. For, although it looks
like a one-woman show, Vis-à-vis is in fact a delicate piece of
chamber music. At every turn, I am joined by another player: the composer/conductor,
who is seated some distance away, behind a MacIntosh computer. He too
responds to the changing musical environment, cueing the next event in
the electronic score with a carefully tuned ear, responding to the subtly
shifting phrase rhythms. It is ultimately this unseen collaboration between
a whole ensemble of listeners and performers—both virtual and real—that
produces the drama of Rilke’s story, and brings out the many faces
of Vis-à-vis.
