As an opera lover and history buff, I sometimes wonder what it might be like to write an opera about the American Civil War. Now this would be very tricky, and if any of you have read my previous post on the issue, you know that I have some very strong opinions about operas based of historical characters. Still the concept is interesting, and if treated properly you could get something amazing.
Now one of my most favorite figures in American History (and in all of history for that matter), is Union General Ulysses S. Grant. I've recently started wondering what if you could write him into an opera. Would he be a tenor role or a baritone role? Would he be the main character or a minor one? And what would his music sound like? Would it be martial or simple?
The answer to that question lies in some of Grant's own personality traits. He was a very quiet man whom one friend described ad being "plain as an old stove". Another thing about Grant is that he was badly tone deaf. He once boasted that he recognized only two tunes; "One was Yankee Doodle, and the other wasn't," as he said. Obviously you can't do much with this guy.
So then what do you do? You make Grant a speaking role. It's not uncommon in opera to have a character that speaks instead of sings, Njegus from The Merry Widow is one such character. The other thing you do is make his leitmotif Yankee Doodle. It was the only tune that Grant recognized, so there's no point in making an original leitmotif for him.
I think that about covers it.
