Bernstein: Trouble in Tahiti reduced orchestration
(February 2010)
Leonard Bernstein: Trouble in Tahiti with new reduced orchestrationGarth Edwin Sunderland introduces his new reduced orchestration of Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. The one-act opera is toured by Psappha next month with a London performance on 26 March within the Southbank Centre's Bernstein Project.
Trouble in Tahiti is a brilliant pastiche of pop music and melodrama, showing Bernstein at his most bitingly ironic, and yet, at the same time, most personal and sincere. Ranging from the jingle-like crooning of the vocal trio to major, show-stopping serio-comic arias for main characters Sam and Dinah, the music pulls out every pop-cultural 1950s stop, while never losing sight of the genuine pathos of its characters: a couple in a troubled marriage, desperate to find the way back to that "Quiet Place" of their love for one another.
A 50-minute, one-act opera, with a small cast of five and minimal staging requirements, Trouble in Tahiti is ideal for small venues and small companies, but a tricky obstacle has always been its orchestra - at a bare minimum of 26 players (assuming only a string quintet rather than the preferred full string sections), it is just a little too big to comfortably fit in many of the small halls that might otherwise be ideal venues for it.
When Kent Nagano came to us last year inquiring about options for fitting the opera into the Cuvillies Theatre of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich (a lovely-but-tiny jewel of Baroque Rococo, where Mozart's Idomeneo had its premiere), it seemed the perfect opportunity to address this issue, and create a reduced orchestration that might allow the work a wider variety of homes.
It was with great pleasure that I undertook to create this new orchestration. It was my primary goal throughout the project to maintain a strict fealty to Bernstein's original intentions, and for presenters of the new orchestration not to have to feel that they were compromising by performing it. The reduction takes a 'one of each' chamber orchestra approach, with an 14-15 piece instrumentation of 1.1.1.1-1.1.0.0-perc(1 or 2 players)- pno-1.1.1.1.1. The premiere performance on July 7 2009, with Maestro Nagano conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, was a great success, launching a sold-out run. It was very gratifying to hear a number of people comment that they didn't even notice that the orchestra had been reduced! While this orchestration cannot be a true substitute for Bernstein's brilliant original, I hope that it might allow Trouble in Tahiti to find an even wider reach, and allow more performers and audiences the chance to experience this hilarious, exuberant melancholy opera.
© Garth Edwin Sunderland, 2009
Garth Edwin Sunderland is a composer and interdisciplinary artist. He is Artistic Director of the Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, and Music Editor for the Leonard Bernstein Office.
This article, reproduced by kind permission of the author, first appeared in the Bernstein newsletter Prelude, Fugue & Riffs TM, a publication of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. To join the mailing list visit www.leonardbernstein.com.
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