PETE M. WYER
composer, "Numinous City"
How did you come across the story of the opera’s subject Ngawang Sangdrol?
My girlfriend works on the Tibet issue, she knew I was looking for ideas for a new piece and one night at dinner she told me Sangdrol's story. I wasn't exactly quick on the uptake I must admit; my initial reaction in my was something like "well it's all well and good: a 14 year old Tibetan nun takes on the mighty Chinese communist party in Tibet, meets the love of her life for only a few minutes, they're both sent to one of the world's most notorious prisons where she doesn't see him again, somehow she and other nuns miraculously records songs on a smuggled cassette machine that are smuggled out, become famous, lead to the government of George W. Bush interceding and to her being released to the US after 11 years whereupon she finds the man from the protest has escaped to India in hopes of seeing her again and keeps calling her, they end up marrying and bringing up a family in the US - but, where's the drama?". Very slowly, the penny dropped....
How has your relationship with Sangdrol shaped Numinous City?
The first time I met Sangdrol was in February 2010. I had already read a great deal about her story and I had written some music thanks to a commission from Royal Opera House's ROH2 (development) programme. To be honest, having read about all she'd been through it was very emotional for me, but, other than asking if she was ok with me seeking to create an opera based on her story, I haven't felt the need to ask her directly about her experiences. I hardly need say that the story is at times very harrowing - several of the nuns who were imprisoned at the same time did not survive Drapchi - hence, I haven't wanted to ask unless there is real, specific need and as her case was adopted by the International Campaign for Tibet there is a great deal of documentation of the story, including many first hand accounts from Sangdrol herself and from other nuns who have since come to the west. Nonetheless, spending time with her is enormously helpful in having an understanding of character.
Also, with Numinous City I have elected to tell/create an opera 'inspired by' Sangdrol's story, so for instance the character based on Sangdrol is called Tsering (a common Tibetan name meaning 'long life') - this is somewhat in deference to Sangdrol's privacy and also because a very literal telling of the story would actually miss some of the more significant aspects of the bigger picture, which I am keen to try to include.
Numinous City has been in development for over a year now. How has the piece changed and grown since its inception?
I started out with a relatively short time-period to produce something for ROH2 - so the first things I wrote were somewhat generic and not necessarily scene-specific. I had a lot of visual images in mind and I basically scored the images as there was no libretto (the horror!).
I certainly have a clearer idea of where I want to take it musically and theatrically and where I would like to explore further - which includes perhaps bringing in a librettist (I've written the libretti for previous works) - it flies against convention to work without a full libretto this way but I find that if I follow the storytelling instinct and allow the music to be an intrinsic part of the storytelling it offers opportunities and ideas that I wouldn't get to otherwise.
A lot of that music is fused with an Eastern musical language. Is this your first time immersing yourself in that style and using those instruments?
Yes it is. I have studied music from other areas of the world for previous works but not from the East. My first priority with the work has been to try to convey in a very direct way the emotional content of the story, so, for example, I have a setting of the Green Tara Mantra: Om Tare Tutare Ture Soha (you can hear it at the beginning of the Numinous City Promo film) one of the ways I've heard it chanted is in a fairly specific 7/8 time but without specific pitch so I've taken that and used it with western harmony, adding tension to it as it relates to a scene from Sangdrol's life where she was held for 6 months in an 'open' cell (no roof) with only a shirt despite the frozen conditions and with bright lighting to stop her from sleeping at night and where she was beaten during the day if she moved from her position, Sangdrol believes she survived this only by chanting day and night.
Other than that I am still very much studying at this point- many of the issues for me are cultural as much as musical - e.g. is this kind of sound appropriate for this scene? If I take these sacred texts and set them in Western style am I doing something sacrilegious? - Funnily enough this is what I am doing right now, here in Kathmandu, Nepal, (Above is a pic from the nearby Bhoudinath Stupa, with a monk whose only form of communication was infectious laughter). 
Here, I have had the privilege of meeting an 85 year old Tibetan master opera singer who demonstrated some of the many sounds and styles of Tibetan opera, I've also listened to Tibetan folk music and been to some extraordinary Tibetan Buddhist rituals (pictured at right) where some of the music sounded to me distinctly like Ornette Coleman or some of the wilder moments of Charles Mingus!
If you were an artistic director at one of the large opera houses, what standard rep production do you think would make an interesting pairing with Numinous City and why?
Ha ha. I thank The Met for doing this already; I see that Philip Glass's Satyagraha is there the night before Numinous City (I'm not sure The Met see this as a double bill) - other natural contenders would be Adams's Nixon In China or perhaps even Death Of Klinghoffer, Stewart Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter also comes to mind - these pairings would give an opportunity to see how different western composers approach and are inspired by the culture, philosophy and music of the East.
Pete M. Wyer
Kathmandu, Nepal
October, 2011
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Numinous City is currently in development at American Opera Projects. Scenes from the opera will next be presented at the Rubin Museum of Art on November 16. See the AOP Events page for details.
