Over the next three years, a consortium of music schools and universities will produce Joseph Turrin and Bernard Stambler’s chamber opera, The Scarecrow, 13 times. In an age when it’s a challenge for a new piece to get a second production, getting 13 is rather spectacular. One morning in April, I had the pleasure of talking with Turrin about how it was done—from the beginning.
The story begins in 1976. Turrin is reading Charles Ives’ Essays Before a Sonata, in which Ives mentions two Nathaniel Hawthorne works that interested him: Celestial Railroad and Feathertop. Long interested in the work of Hawthorne, Turrin reads them both and chooses eathertop as the basis for his opera.
Hawthorne’s story follows a living scarecrow fabricated by his “mother” and animated by the devil to take revenge against a hypocritical, wellto-do neighbor. Gradually, the scarecrow becomes more human than anticipated and finds himself in a world he is unprepared to inhabit.
With this concept firmly in mind, Turrin applied for and received a bicentennial grant from the state of New Jersey. Now he had an idea and some money, but he needed a librettist. Turrin contacted a publisher, who suggested Bernard Stambler (best known for his work on The Cruciblewith Robert Ward).
The two arranged to meet at Stambler’s house in New Jersey. Turrin played through what he had written so far and Stambler said: “You know, I always thought that would make a good opera myself.” Turrin and Stambler clicked, and they went to work, eventually completing the vocal score. Other projects began to take precedence, however, and Feathertop was placed on the shelf before receiving its premiere.
Nearly 30 years pass and it’s 2004. Turrin is at the Eastman School of Music working with the wind ensemble, and considering revising Feathertop. He had always been nagged by the thought that the opera hadn’t had its chance. The conductor of the wind ensemble, Mark Scatterday, suggested that Turrin do something about it—like put together a consortium of universities and get the work produced. Creating a consortium had worked for Turrin in the past, but it hadn’t occurred to him to employ the idea for an opera.
Rather than just making copies of his score and sending them to dozens of schools, Turrin took strategic steps to introduce his work to its future audience:
• He drew up a list of schools he knew had good opera, string, and wind departments, especially focusing on schools where he already had some connections. Since Turrin had already composed several pieces for wind ensemble, these contacts were often in the band departments rather than the opera departments.
• He put together a presentation letter describing the opera, including a brief history of the work.
• He drew up a contract, including the fee the university would be required to pay him to revise and orchestrate the work. He also included a payment schedule, if a lump sum was not possible, as well as dates for when scores
and parts would be delivered. Turrin gave the schools a flexible three-year window for programming the opera.
Turrin e-mailed the proposal to the schools and waited for their responses. He didn’t send the score—just the idea and the nuts and bolts for getting it done. If schools responded for more information, Turrin sent them a PDF of the piano vocal score that they could use to make their decision.
While waiting for schools to respond to his proposal, Turrin busied himself revising the work. He renamed the opera The Scarecrow. He added an aria for the character Polly and some narration that would introduce each of the two acts. He also fleshed out some extended musical sections and created an overture. Turrin had to make these changes on his own—Stambler passed away in 1995—but he feels confidant he maintained the intent of the original collaboration. As Turrin put it, “The adjustments to the piece just flowed out of me.” He now had a 70-minute chamber-opera for a cast of 12 and an ensemble of 20 instrumentalists, mostly winds. A new Scarecrow was born.
Eventually 13 schools entered the consortium: the University of Texas at Austin, the Eastman School of Music, the Hartt School of Music, the University of New Mexico, the University of Michigan, Yale University, Michigan State University, the University of Minnesota, Baylor University, the University of North Texas, Arizona State University, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
Once Turrin had explained to me how the work with the consortium was done, our conversation drifted to less tangible topics, such as personal agency, and creating in the face of fear and rejection.
It’s a daunting task to market a piece to dozens of schools, but as Turrin councils his students: “Everything begins with the first step. It’s very hard to start writing. We all look for ways to avoid the process, which is very painful. It’s a struggle, but once you make the first step, the second one is a little easier, and then the third one. Well, it’s the same in a career. If you’re not pushing yourself, no one else is going to push you.”
Thanks to his intrepidness, more than a hundred singers will have the opportunity to work on a contemporary opera with its composer in residence, for at least some period, at their school. When asked if he had any advice for a young singer working with a living composer, he quickly mentioned that his ears are always open for feedback from those he works with and that “it’s important for singers to speak what’s on their minds when working with a composer” (while also keeping in mind that not all composers will be open to such information). After all, he added, “The singers are the ones out there on the battlefield. They’re the ones who have to perform the piece. If they’re giving input into
the project, it means that they care.”
Performing a new work can certainly be challenging, but it’s also exhilarating because it requires the artist to stretch. “When musicians expose themselves to new pieces it certainly enriches their experience,” Turrin explains. “It increases their vocabulary, their thoughts about things. As a composer, I always feel this excitement around singers and instrumentalists who are learning new things. As with anything in life, when one opens oneself to newness, it increases your growth and your understanding of your craft.”
Turrin appreciates the complexity of the singing field, especially the competition, rejection, and whimsy of the audition process. He firmly maintains, however, that making your own career is important while you’re waiting
for the big guns to find you.
“It’s simple to think: ‘When I make it, everything will be easy,’ but that’s not really the case,” says Turrin. “On any level, you must have the ability to push yourself and constantly turn over all the stones. If one doesn’t work out, you go on to the next one. If you love what you do, you do it—it’s like breathing. If you don’t have that drive, you gotta get it somehow, because no one is going to do it for you.”
Everyone gets stalled by rejection, even the people who seem like they’re not, Turrin explains. “No one wants to be rejected and we all put our guts on the line in what we do. It’s just part of life. When you put time into something, love into something, suffer for something, you can love it even more.”
The Scarecrow is continuing to evolve as more schools mount their productions. At the time of our interview, Turrin was just about to leave for Illinois to see the third incarnation of his opera, with 10 to go. But Joseph hasn’t stopped working. While he continues to work with students and schools, his next project is percolating. He didn’t tell me too much about it, but it is a musical theatre piece.
The Scarecrow was one of several finalists nominated by the American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard Rogers Awards committee. It was also selected as a finalist in the National Opera Association chamber opera competition. For more information on The Scarecrow and its composer, visit www.josephturrin.com.
