a cloned chorus

So…I haven't posted in a while because I've been working on an opera. Or…maybe I was thinking about writing an opera by watching various operas like Don Giovanni or The Rake's Progress or Tosca—which, by the way, I haven't seen the third act of the Met Live in HD rebroadcast due to a transmission error, so please don't tell me what happens. And yes, that sucked.

Or…maybe I haven't blogged because I haven't had time to brainstorm something new—and the rejection letters keep piling up.

You see, I don't want this to turn into a complete Composer FAIL Blog. Instead, I'll write about my opera chorus.

My opera takes place in the not-too-distant future where cosmetic cloning, the procedure of cloning a new-and-improved version of yourself, exists.* (I know, this screams science fiction.) According to my librettist, three-fourths of the resident doctors (the chorus) are clones. I've decided that all my cloned characters' voices should be vocoded, but I had the issue of dealing with the lone soprano whose voice will merely be amplified.


I also thought, "Why not have the lower three voices be clones? And why not have them sing together homophonically no matter what?"

And so now my lone soprano is not singing with the lower three voices, desperately trying to catch up and make up for her flawed self.

*It's You…Only Better.


[The picture above? A wall decal from whatisblik.com.]