What do you get the man who has everything?
That's the question Cerise Lim Jacobs wrestled with before the 75th birthday of her husband, entrepreneur and opera fan Charles Jacobs. Finally, she settled on the perfect gift: she would write a song cycle.
Though she was a trial lawyer at the time with no experience in the opera world, Jacobs flung herself into the project. Thus, the first opera in the Ouroboros trilogy, "Madame White Snake," was born. Launched in 2010, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, lauded by the committee as a brilliant blend of the musical and folk traditions of East and West.
Charles, unfortunately, died shortly after the premiere, but Cerise pressed on, eventually writing a second and third installment to form the Ouroboros trilogy. This September, ArtsEmerson is staging the trilogy in its full, grand glory, presenting all three operas both separately and together in full-day, seven-hour marathon events. To find out more information, click this link.
Highlights of the interview include:
On the concept behind the trilogy
JACOBS: It’s based on the concept of the Ouroboros, which is the Greek iconic tail-devouring snake. As the snake eats itself, it dies, but its own body provides the food for its rebirth, and so it has become the universal symbol of life, death, and rebirth. In the three operas in Ouroboros, the characters reincarnate, one into the other, so you’ll be able to see the similarities in the characters. The composers reincarnate one into another, and the conductors reincarnate one into another. The only constants are the director, Michael Counts, who views Ouroboros not as three different operas but one unified whole.
On making the jump from lawyer to librettist:
JACOBS: It’s...a mystery to me. The best I can come up with is the whole initiative started with Charles, who was an irascible, impossible entrepreneur. His big birthday was coming up: he was going to be 75, and for the Chinese that’s a really big birthday. He’s a man who doesn’t want anything, except that he had this huge passion for opera. So I thought to myself, 'okay, why not commission a small song cycle and have it performed in our living room for his birthday?' And before you know it, it’s like construction: You're building a little deck, and the next thing you know, you’ve ripped down the side of your house and you’ve built an addition, and then you’ve built on top of the addition and that’s really what happened…
If I had been an opera person, somebody in the industry, I would have been overcome by my knowledge of the limitations of human ability...But because I was totally ignorant of any of the constraints that most people in the industry fear, I was able to just say, 'okay, let's dream big.'
I think that was why Ouroboros came about. If I had been an opera person, somebody in the industry, I would have been overcome by my knowledge of the limitations of human ability, in terms of how one gets a new opera off the ground, how you actually produce the damn thing. But because I was totally ignorant of any of the constraints that most people in the industry fear, I was able to just say, 'okay, let’s dream big.' Of course, I had Charles, who was the biggest dreamer in the world, who egged me on onto bigger and bigger things.
On choosing the composer for "Madame White Snake"
JACOBS: I always ask every one of my composers: 'What do you hear when you read the libretto? What is your idea of the music?' I’ll never forget it. I didn’t have to ask Zhou that question. He looked at me across the food and said, 'Cerise, the moment I read it, I heard the music,' and he went on spilling out this music, and I knew. I knew right away.
To hear more from Cerise Lim Jacobs, tune in to Boston Public Radio above.
