No Exit |
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An Opera in One Act |
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by Zachary M. Watkins |
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presented by CRC Music Department and Rogue Music Project |
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Cosumnes River College Recital Hall | ||
Friday, September 6th, 2024 | ||
7:00 pm |
Synopsis
Synopsis:
Three people, Estelle Rigault, Joseph Garcin, and Inèz Serrano are led to a room in Hell by a mysterious valet. While they had all expected something more violent to punish them for eternity, they find a simple furnished room. Will the banality of it all drive them mad, or is it not as bad as they imagined?
Rogue Music Project and the CRC Music Department present a concert reading of Sacramento-based composer Zachary M. Watkins' opera "No Exit" after the play by Jean-Paul Sartres. CRC Music Department students and community performers star in this exciting premier under the mentorship of Rogue Music Project.
Post-Performance Discussion:
Join us for a 30-minute conversation following the performance with:
- Zachary M. Watkins – Composer and Librettist
- Professor Omari Tau – Music
- Anthony D’Juan – Theatre & Dance
- Members of the Company
A note from the composer
Three individuals trapped in Hell to torture each other for all time. The central conflict of No Exit resonates even to someone unfamiliar with playwright Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophies. To bring that conflict to life through music was a decades-long dream for composer Zachary M. Watkins.
Sartre’s play is a standard of philosophical study. His three characters—Garcin, Inèz, and Estelle, are all horrible people who belong in their setting. The common denominator behind their damnation isn’t their misdeeds, per se, but their need to treat fellow humans as Other.
Watkins’ first attempt to adapt Sartre’s masterwork as a young composer was little more than a pen and ink sketch. Though performed multiple times, the composer remained dissatisfied and longed to improve it. That desire took root when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. What was a nascent work with piano accompaniment has matured into an hour-long one-act opera complete with chamber orchestra score.
Many themes and concepts from the initial version have survived and been expanded on. The opera’s style remains minimalist in character with a focus on pulse, rhythm, and syncopation. As the tension between characters rises and falls, the music’s tonality expands and contracts as well, flowing from consonance to dissonance to aurally illustrate the drama.
The orchestration follows the characters closely, and each is paired with a specific instrument. Audiences should listen for how the cello rises in prominence with Garcin, and the clarinet with Inès. Notice how the duality of violin and flute highlight the depth of Estelle’s denial. And amidst these are the ever-present piano and percussion. Often mechanical, with clockwork-like precision, they enforce a maddening inevitability.
Ultimately, Sartre’s characters remain trapped because of their own refusal to learn, change, and grow. Sharing the darkness of their souls, bringing their sins to light, doesn’t lead to new beginnings. Instead, they endlessly gang up against each other in every possible combination. Their character arcs are a circle, looping again and again forever and ever.
And night will never come.