A MELODY

In 1993, I opened an old French version of Hamlet that had been in my family for years. I did what a lot of people would probably do, which was to turn to the “to be or not to be” soliloquy, curious about how it would sound in French. As I read it, I heard a melody.

That melody haunted me for the next 22 years.

In 2015, I finally decided to download some free composition software (thank you Musescore) in an attempt to write what I had been hearing in my head for the last couple decades.

The flood gates opened.

I still don’t understand where it came from, but I couldn’t stop writing, because I couldn’t stop hearing. As I read the play, I heard music playing. I heard voices singing. I heard an opera, fully orchestrated, fully complete to the extent that I never re-wrote any scenes, and I barely even edited. It was more an act of transcription than of composition, and over the next couple years I balanced this newfound passion in fits and starts with a full-time job and fatherhood to write a full-length, fully-orchestrated opera as a first-time composer.

It was done, but it wasn’t. I needed to hear it for real, not just in my head.

RECORDING

If you’ve never contemplated hiring an entire orchestra, here’s the back-of-the-envelope math: take 40 to 60 people, pay them $50-$100 an hour, and do that for a lot of hours.

Can’t afford it? Neither could I. Even opera houses can’t afford it. Instead, I went the route of teaching myself Cubase (a leading digital audio software package) and leveraged extraordinary classical instrument sample libraries from companies like EastWest and Spitfire. Incredibly, even as a complete novice, I was able to create something that sounded close to an actual orchestra in a few months.

But as for vocals? Well, software can’t do that. Not well, at least. I needed singers. Human ones. Fortunately, as a former professional opera singer, I’m lucky enough to know some of the greatest singers on Earth.

Incidentally - to this day, having been able to pay artists to create art remains a never-ending source of joy in my life.

I was getting closer to hearing this thing for real, but before recording, I still needed to do two things:

Derive a piano reduction from the orchestral score so that a pianist could accompany the singers, who would be listening via headphones in their recording booth with the pianist in a separate room.
Translate my French translation of Shakespearean English lyrics into modern English, as I wanted it to be accessible to younger audiences in the US, where I lived at the time. And yes, I actually did that: I translated a French translation of English into another English. And honestly, looking back, that’s the thing I regret, because I heard it in French, and it should have been done in French. Had I read the play in English, I would have heard the music differently.

Another few months passed, but I was able to cross both of these things off my list. Then I rented a recording studio in NYC, locked in everyone’s availability, and over the course of two trips and three days, I recorded some insanely talented people on the vocals.

PUBLISHING

Layering hundreds of individual vocal audio clips into Cubase is where the rubber met the road. I had written duets, trios, and other ensemble scenes, but I recorded every singer individually…and everybody took slightly different tempos. And of course I had created the orchestration independently as well. I had to take all of that and make it sound as if everyone had performed together in the same room…and I had to do that in software I was a relative amateur in.

It took months, but I didn’t care. What’s another few months when you’ve put in 26 years already? I had heard a short melody in 1993, and here I was in late 2019 about to complete a studio recording of an entire opera. It was crazy.

And then it was done.

And I was almost sad…because now what? I started sending it out to theatres hoping they would give it a listen and produce it.

And then Covid brought the curtain down on the entire industry.

POSTLUDE

In the aftermath of the pandemic, I got legitimately distracted relocating my family to France and then starting a new job. These were not minor things, but they became major excuses for not taking the next step with Hamlet, which would be a full production. I didn’t pitch it, I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t even listen to it. Most people don’t know I even did it. How could they? I never told them.

In hindsight, I made excuses to cover up a fear of failure and rejection...but I'm not going to do that anymore.

I’m under no illusions that everyone will like it – I mean, after all, it’s opera – but here’s the thing: I love it. I love it for the literal thousands of hours I put in, for the journey it took me on, for the connection it re-established in me to something fundamental in my soul. I love it for the parts that I find achingly beautiful, but also for the ones I don’t.

After my children, this is the most meaningful thing I’ve ever had a hand in creating. It’s a labor of love three decades in the making, and that’s probably something I should share with the world.

So, here I am, 31 years after hearing a melody, inviting you to hear it with me.

Erik Lautier