Doktoro Esperanto: an opera project

A few months ago, the idea of writing an Esperanto-language opera about the language’s inventor came to me. I took it as a challenge, because not only have I never written (or even cared to write) an opera, and I know relatively little about the art form. But the first two operas I ever heard were Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, so I’m at least familiar with the Mozartian version of the art form. (I’m listening to Wagner’s epic Ring cycle now.)

Now on to the plot. This is indeed based on the life of L.L. Zamenhof, but with some artistic license, as long as the known facts of the story are preserved.. It’s part history, part historical fantasy, part hysterical fantasy. (Most of the libretto will have to be written by someone else, but I’ll try to write a little.)

The opera will be dramatic while occasionally comic, a Bildungsroman of sorts for Zamenhof and for modern civilization. The music itself progresses, through the three acts, from Classical to Romantic to Modern--from Mozart to Wagner to Berg.

Act I: Białystok, Poland, then under Russian rule.

This act is in Russian, Polish and Yiddish (Esperanto had not yet been invented), with brief portions using four liturgical languages. Groups of singers from the Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish and Islamic faiths (the last being the Lipka Tatars) function as a "Greek chorus" throughout the opera.

Zamenhof was born in 1859. The January Uprising took place four years later. He witnesses the divisions between the ethnic and religious groups with which he becomes acquainted. He dreams of a future where there would be no war and no persecution, and all nations and peoples would be free. The idea comes to him that if people spoke a common language, then there would be world peace.

Act II: Warsaw, Moscow, Vienna and elsewhere. In this act, among the other languages, Esperanto is first introduced.

Now in secondary school, Zamenhof, a glossophile like his father, has studied numerous other languages, and also discovered one called Volapük, published in 1880 by a German Catholic priest named Johann Martin Schleyer (the language is briefly featured in the act). By now, Esperanto was already well into development.

His career, however, was to be in medicine, and he continued his medical studies in Russia and in Poland. He would begin his practice in Lithuania in 1885, then as an ophthamologist in Poland and Vienna. But while he healed people, he hoped to heal mankind through his universal language.

He would get married, and with the help of his father-in-law, publishes Международный язык. Предисловие и полный учебник (An International Language: Introduction and Complete Textbook). He also developed a religious humanistic philosophy based on the teachings of the rabbi Hillel the Elder, called Homaranismo, which taught the Golden Rule as the supreme moral principle which unites all religions.

Act III: Warsaw, April 1917. This act is entirely in Esperanto.

Zamenhof is now in the last days of his life. The Russian Revolution had begun the month before, and the First World War raged on. Great changes would sweep the Old and New Worlds.

He has a vision of the past and the future. He is told that a great evil will befall Europe, caused by a "German-speaking Haman" (all three of his children were murdered in the Holocaust). His language endures both success (however limited) and suppression. He sees that there may never be world peace, but it will always a noble effort to try to bring it about.

My microtonal notation systems, revisited

I've written about this before, but I've devised two systems of notating microtonal intervals, usually 72 equal divisions to the octave.

The first uses a combination of standard accidentals, quarter-tone symbols (called Tartini-Couper) and standard accidentals with attached arrows. Bartók wrote arrows above notes or accidentals to mark small inflections of time, what he vaguely called "quarter tones", in his own works and transcriptions of folk tunes. I call this system "Tartini-Couper-Bartók", or TCB for short.

The fractions underneath mark fractions of a whole tone (200 cents in 72-edo; 1/12 tone = 16.67 cents):

If I want to indicate exact degrees of 72-tone, I may use shape notes instead. These are normally used in old American hymnals. I took the seven-shape system and adapted them, in a very nonstandard way, where any shape can fall on any note. The regular oval, or 'so' shape, indicates a pitch that does not deviate from 12-tone equal temperament.

Remember, the shapes do not represent the notes of the diatonic "do-re-mi" scale. Also, the shape for 'fa' is turned 180° when the note stem points downward (or, in the case of whole notes, would be if it had a stem).

These are just two possible notation systems. I don't pretend to offer a be-all-end-all solution to anything.

Fundamental intervals

Many important intervals in the 72 tone matrix, organized into 31 pitch classes (two are in italics because they lie outside the 41-tone Miracle scale).

This method could be used to determine ideal tuning of notes in a chord, if microtonal intervals are available (as in vocals, violin-type instruments and trombones).

0. perfect prime (unison), 1/1
2. semiaugmented prime, 64/63
4. augmented prime, 27/26
5. augmented prime, 21/20
7. minor second, 16/15
9. neutral second, 12/11
10. neutral second, 11/10
11. major second (less than whole tone), 10/9
12. major second (whole tone), 9/8
14. diminished third, 8/7
16. augmented second ("blues" third), 7/6
18. minor third (Pytagorean), 32/27
19. minor third, 6/5
21. neutral second, 11/9
23. major third, 5/4
25. diminished fourth, 14/11
26. diminished fourth, 9/7
28. semidiminished fourth, 21/16
30. perfect fourth, 4/3
32. semiaugmented fourth, 15/11
33. semiaugmented fourth, 11/8
35. augmented fourth (tritone I), 7/5
37. diminished fifth (tritone II), 10/7
39. semidiminished fifth, 16/11
40. semidiminished fifth, 22/15
42. perfect fifth, 3/2
44. semiaugmented fifth, 32/21
46. augmented fifth, 14/9
47. augmented fifth, 11/7
49. minor sixth, 8/5
51. neutral sixth, 18/11
53. major sixth, 5/3
54. major sixth (Pythagorean), 27/16
56. septimal major sixth, 12/7
58. septimal minor "blues" seventh, 7/4
60. minor seventh (Pythagorean), 16/9
61. minor seventh, 9/5
62. neutral seventh, 20/11
63. neutral seventh, 11/6
65. major seventh, 15/8
67. diminished octave, 40/21
68. diminished octave, 27/16
70. semidiminished octave, 63/32
72. perfect octave, 2/1