Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.40.0111122323140.22818-100000@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: Le Popu Ballistique
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 23:23:38 -0500
- Le Popu Ballistique My father sings the opera beautifully. There are nine acts and tableaus, coloratura. It is for solo voice. in the day: 1 Untitled: prologue Scene by a swimming pool. A blond woman in the distance wears a bikini and is sunbathing. She is framed by palm trees in silhouette. There are beach chairs behind her. 2 Miami Vice A closeup of the woman. This scene is very somber. She disappears and blurs out. in the night: 3 nikuko and alan were good terrorists The beginnings of the somber intermezzo. The scene is bathed in red- brown. nikuko appears nude, outside, on a second floor landing. She looks wistful. There are apartments all around. She is in closeup. 4 bad people wanted nikuko's cunt even if they died The second of the somber intermezzo. The scene is bathed in brown-red- brown. nikuko continues to stare out from the second-floor landing. 5 nikuko and alan are waiting to kill you Bleak and darker in this third of the somber intermezzo. The scene is bathed in the same light as before, but the view is from a greater distance. It is here at the climax of the opera that my father's voice reaches its greatest range in an unforgettable aria. 6 alan would offer nikuko to anyone who wanted her Darker yet, the fourth of the somber intermezzo. The seem is bathed in red-brown-red light, blood colored, somewhat mottled. nikuko is seen in closeup again, as in the first two scenes. 7 in miami, nikuko fucked everyone and everyone died From a distance, the fifth of the somber intermezzo. The light changed, cooler, tan. nikuko is standing upright. She is still on the landing, leaning slightly against the railing. She is still nude. 8 nikuko would give their corpses to alan to fuck The sixth of the somber intermezzo, deep blood red, darker, very mottled. The same view as the previous scene. nikuko has turned slightly. 9 no more nikuko and alan The last of the somber intermezzo, green and liquid in appearance. There are two empty beach-chairs, recliners. An apartment complex is behind them. They seem to be at the pool. An open hallway is overlit in the background. At this point my father's voice dies to a whisper. He sings just as beautifully in a soft, low voice. 10 Untitled: epilogue The blue-green-blue edge of a swimming-pool. Bubbles rise in a parabolic arc. This scene, the last, is in silence. The audience is quiet. Everything in the Le Popu Ballistique is uncanny. My father's voice, Azure naked on the landing, the blond woman almost naked in the prologue - these are the austere elements of this opera of muted terror and annihilation. For the first time, trauma takes central stage. The audience leaves, already in memory and denial. This was happening to them. _