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| Travis V. McGonigle |
Mr. McGonigle, we thank you for making time for us to share your thoughts with our readers.
Yeah, yeah! Get on with it, dammit!
Let's start with a little history. 70 years ago you first put pen to paper to write this opera. What inspired you to write it back then, and what prompted you to take it back up after so many years?
I was a barber myself for years. Not in Paducah, I lived 'cross the river in Illinois, but I went to Paducah often to play bluegrass music with a band there. I fashioned the character Luigi from a real Italian barber in Paducah. This guy was a rotten bastard, cheat his own Mama out of her last dollar, rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth. He was crooked as a snake, made most of his money illegally. The shop was mostly a front. But at least my character has some morals, some scruples. The actual barber didn't have a single redeeming trait!
Interesting! What caused you to lay it down for so many years?
That should be easy for ya'll to figger out! A more or less traditional opera written in 1954, that has a name that's an obvious take-off on The Barber Of Seville, written by an unknown, mostly self-taught musician with no connections. That reason enough fer ya?
Yes, it seems you weren't likely to have it performed. Did you ever get anyone to at least look at it, give you some feedback?
Just a local leader of a band that played on the radio. He read it through, at least what I had done. He told me don't quit cuttin' hair!
So you gave up on it, laid it aside?
Gave up on it? Are you pullin' my leg? Hell no, I never give up on it! Worked on it a few more years, then I gave up on it! By that time I had a wife and kids, had to make a livin' and it sure wasn't gonna be as a composer!
Did you ever work on it during the 70 years? I expect you had to cut a lot of hair to make a living as aa barber.
Ya said a mouthful there! But I had a few things on the side to add to my income. My shop was a central point for bookies in the area, and I got a kick back from them. The cops never bothered me or any of them about it, so it was okay.
So like your main character, you offered other 'services' besides cutting hair!
Sure, but I never ran no whores, Nothin' to do with that business! Always felt bad for the girls that got wrapped up with that. They never got no kind of treatment but bad!
So you spent all those years cutting hair, and finally retired, sold your shop.
Yep. Arthritis in my hands, most of my damned joints. All the kids growed up and gone, my wife passed on shortly after I retired.
How old were you when you quit cutting hair?
70.
So you still had twenty years before you went back to the opera. What kept you busy those years?
Luckily, my eyeballs still in good shape, so I read a lot. I mean, a lot! Listened to baseball on the radio, never cared for it on TV. I was alone, but didn't give a shit. I was glad to do what I wanted when I wanted, had no desire to get involved with nobody, but I did go to local gin mills to hear local bands. Didn't listen to music much, let alone write it.
So how did you come to pick it up again? It's a wonder it didn't disappear in the interim.
Oh hell no! I sweat blood over some of those pages! I kept it in an insulated lock box under my bed. I forgot it myself for a while, but lose it? What in hell's wrong with you?
So tell us the story of how you came back to it? It's an amazing story of serendipity!
I don't know 'bout all that, but it was pure luck! Somewhere along the line I must've sent some of the manuscript to a contest or something, because the Italian tenor Luigi Transatori found it in a library. Evidently a musicologist got a hold of it, and all of his score collection was donated to this library. Anyway, Transatori read through what was there, the whole first act and parts of 2 and 3. He was quite taken with Luigi's opening aria. I guess Transatori likes a challenge, because that aria can separate the men from the boys. A dictionary full of words sung at a fast clip, with a few rhythmic traps in it. The whole role is the most demanding in the whole opera. It took the tenor quite a while to find me, and when he first knocked on the door I thought he was a salesman and I turned him away. But he was so persistent, I finally let him in. I was bowled over when he said who he was and why he was there.
Did you take it back up right away? I imagine you were somewhat shocked.
Oh hell no! Couldn't even hold a damned pencil because of the arthritis. Wasn't until Transatori brought me a new desktop computer with a music processor on it. I could run a computer at least with a mouse. Took me a spell to get the hang of it, but wasn't long until I could get around on it pretty good. The old score was a real mess. Paper old and brittle, some of the ink faded so bad it was unreadable. But it felt good to redo what I had. Funny how stuff you ain't done for so long comes back to ya. Must be tucked away in yer head somewhere. Then I had another guy, a rep from a music software company, come and trained me how to use AI to make putting it all together easier. Man, no more slingin' a butt load of paper scores all over the place!
You put the old score back together, changing things as you went, and got to the point where you'd quit. Big And Tall Records got involved, brought in a conductor for you to work with, and they actually recorded the first two acts as well as other individual pieces. But then it all caved in again, and everything stopped. Why?
I had words with the goddam conductor. Told him if he wanted to compose an opera, go write his own and quit rewriting mine to suit himself! He stormed out in a huff. Artistic temperament! Bullshit! That's just an excuse for bad manners! Then Transatori walked! His relationship with the conductor was more important than the opera he had championed. I went back to listening to baseball and reading, after a fews weeks they came back, apologized and wanted to jump back in with both feet. Well, to hell with that! Some things just saying you're sorry for don't cut it! Listen, I'm an old bastard, pushin' 100 years old!1 Like I got time for bullshit? Any way, Big And Tall Records found another tenor and conductor, and these guys are the greatest! With all the tools and help they've given me, this opera is peeking around the corner of being done! Something I never thought would happen!
That's quite a story! Tell us what the first Act is all about. What was your vision for it and did it meet that vision when it was done?
Meet the vision? Godfrey Daniel, it surpassed it! The orchestra is phenomenal, the conductor knows the score better than I do, and the tenor has got a pair of iron bellows for lungs! Everything I threw at him he handles like a dream! That goes for the other singers as well. The first act is all about introduction of characters. First, Luigi, the crooked, charismatic to women, philandering barber. Next is Louisa, the young woman that owns the flower shop that appears innocent, but like we find out when Luigi takes her to supper in the 2nd Act, she invites him in to the shop after he walks her home. She says she'll make coffee,when what she really wants to make is whoopie! Antonio the big brother is a big clunky guy that gives Luigi good advice that Luigi seldom takes, and Antonio goes along to get along. And the patrons of the shop, a bunch of dead-beat gamblers and whore customers that sing Luigi's praises, but later in the opera make book to on how long Luigi will last in a fight with a husband that found out about his wife having an affair with him. But I'm getting ahead of the story. Then Aunt Cora, a nosy busy-body with a nasty disposition since her husband ran off, but we get a good example of why he did. Then all the 'ladies' at the beauty salon, with Jill leading the line of wives that are screwing Luigi. That's it in a nutshell, Act I. But hold on to yer socks, because things are about to heat up!
I'll tell ya somethin' that really gripes my wrinkled old ass! The loud mouth few that insist on the opera needing an overture! First off, it's being recorded, don't know if it'd ever be staged, and even if it did I wouldn't write no goddam overture for it! You know what the original purpose of an overture was? To tell people to shut the hell up cuz the show's startin'! That's from a long time ago, and if an audience ain't civilized enough by now to know that when the house lights are turned down and the conductor heads for the orchestra pit that it's time to shut the hell up, then an overture won't make no difference! Never did intend for it to have an overture from the very beginning! I want the curtain to raise as the orchestra plays the short little intro to Luigi's aria, and have the tenor belt it out!
