Gavin Bryars: The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid – Claron McFadden

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is composer Gavin Bryars’ fifth opera (and second chamber opera) and is a theatrical adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s novel of the same name

It continues Bryars’principle of intimacy and flexibility, with it being scored for just two singers and six instruments.

There are just two singers in the opera, one male (Billy the Kid) and one female (for all the female characters, as well as serving as a kind of narrator). The soprano is the incredibly versatile Claron McFadden , who is comfortable singing opera, baroque music, new music and jazz. Billy is sung by the French singer- songwriter, and rock star, Bertrand Belin. Although it may seem a surprising combination of voices it was an inspired choice, in spite of (or perhaps because of) their vastly different backgrounds. Bertrand doesn’t even read music, and he had to learn the whole opera note by note.

The libretto was adapted by Jean Lacornerie from the original novel, retaining the structure which mixes narrative with “left-handed poems”. All 11 poems became the opera’s 11 songs, with some additional sung recitative, while the spoken narrative used a mixture of French and English. This was partly because virtually all the performances were for French-speaking audiences and because it enabled Bertrand to perform the spoken text in a rapid and quasi-improvisational way.

Jean thought of the narrative as giving a perspective on a hero from the westerns of our childhood which are “more real than reality; deeper and richer; and which we are ready to believe like a secret told only to us, like a hymn to the freedom that rings in our ears like a paradise lost…”