Opera Comes to Lake Wobegon?

Michael Barone speaks with Garrison Keillor.

Michael Barone: Interesting to have Beethoven and the Heimlich maneuver brought together in such marvelous harmony toward the end of the piece.

Garrison Keillor: I've always wanted to do more with the Ode to Joy, and we work it fairly hard in this, and it's a natural tune to turn to when the soprano is given the Heimlich and she spits up the shrimp that she's been choking on for the past ten minutes, though she does still continue to sing. I believe it's one of the longer death scenes in opera. If it's not, I could make it even longer.

JMB: And you use the sextet from Lucia at the very end as a quintet.

GK: I love that sextet. And I don't think you miss that other-what is it another baritone that's supposed to be in there? or two tenors? I forget-sounds beautiful as a quintet and I've always loved it for all those layers of words. I've never written five sets of lyrics covering each other in that way.

JMB: This is the challenge of opera, because everyone wants to have something to say in those ensembles. And we in the audience struggle to figure out what it is that's going on. How about you as the author of those words-do you fret that some particular point might get missed in a setting like that?

GK: No, they are only expressing pleasure at being in the garden, and they are admiring and naming plants. It simply is a catalogue of the names of plants and trees and flowers and grasses. That's the resolution of the opera. There is no resolution. Life goes on, and spring comes, and they walk out into the yard, and all of their complaints and conspiracies and secrets are dissipated in the face of the beauty of nature. And I think that sextet made into a quintet expresses that very well. People are used to hearing it in Italian, but I think that English can be just as mysterious and incomprehensible.

JMB: Has this been a liberating experience or has this been confounding in the extreme?

GK: It's been confounding and distressing and a sort of imprisonment with a deadline looming, and you're not happy with what you have in front of you.

JMB: Is that any different from week to week with Prairie Home?

GK: Oh, radio is so simple and so magical compared to putting something out on a stage in a big hall.

JMB: Having done this once, would you do it again?

GK: I would enjoy tinkering with it, because a lot of the hard work has been done. The hard work was the version that I threw away-and then the version that followed that, that didn't work out either. But as long as you have something that is real, then it's fun to tinker with it and construct it. That's really the pleasure of writing for the theater, I think-is to try and figure out how things work and carpenter them together. It's as much mechanics as what I would consider writing. But would I do it again? I don't know; I'm too old. I'm going to be 60 years old, and I'm not sure I have enough years left in me to do this again. I'm not sure I learned enough from having done this the first time to be able to do it better the second time.

JMB: But perhaps you haven't learned enough to prevent you from trying a second time.

GK: I don't know. I suppose you're right. I'm a very suggestible person. Twilight, a little wine, some cheese, and I might agree to it.

JMB: As a Midwesterner and as someone who has chronicled the life of the Midwesterner, do you think there is any salvation for us. These characters here struggle to get beyond themselves and yet, after a little drama and some digestive trauma, it's back to the same old same old.

GK: Is there a long-term solution for being Midwestern? Well people solve this in their own ways, and I suppose that most people try to solve this by moving away-to California or the sunbelt or Seattle or New York or whatever place seems to be hiring these days. We are a great exporter of people. But you come to a point when you realize the benefits of loyalty and experience and stability. And then you choose to stay here, as irritating as it can be, to live here, and we could talk at great length about that. For all of that, it's a beautiful culture. It's a very decent culture, and it has its grandeur. It has its very private mysteries, and there are a lot of good people here. And you don't want to abandon your allies, your troops. If you moved elsewhere, you're not so sure you could easily locate them.

JMB: So the best thing to do is give them a lovely musical background and make their life seem at least as interesting as possible.

GK: Well, give them as good a show as we can.