Jeet Thayil Readies New Opera

Jeet Thayil of Mumbai lyrical pop duo Sridhar/Thayil is working on a new opera, in collaboration with British composer Edward Rushton. Last year, Sridhar/Thayil performed an opera noir entitled The Flying Wallas, which was about a “lyrical conversation between a soprano and a ghost about God, murder and showbiz”.

We spoke with Jeet Thayil about his new project – a new opera with conversational ghosts. He tells us about how the collaboration happened, and we want to keep his voice in a box in a room and listen to it forever.

Jeet Thayil on Edward Rushton:
He’s not your standard classical music composer, he does new work which is – let’s put it like this it’s not friendly, it expects a lot from the listener. You have to be a little patient, you have to know a little something, but if you do it rewards you tremendously. It’s difficult and beautiful music.

On the backstory:
He writes modern opera scores, and we were put together by the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia in Delhi. Chandrika Grover of Pro Helvetia put us together on a project two years ago, a project that would’ve reworked the Ramayana. We started work on that, but for one reason or the other, the project was shelved. Luckily, neither of us had done much work on it, I had written four pages of text, and Edward had written one page of music. So we weren’t too heavily invested, so when the project was shelved neither of us were heartbroken about it. And then what Edward did was he contacted the opera group in London, with whom he had worked before, and he said that we had started work on this project and he would like to work on a future project with me. So then the director of the opera group John Fulljames, Edward and I had a meeting in London last year when I was there with Sridhar/Thayil, and we decided on a new project which will go up in 2012. It’ll be up in India, in Europe and I think it’ll open in London with the Opera Group, at the Young Vic.

On how it’s progressing:
At the moment, I’m panicking, because I have to finish this by the 15th, which is about a week away, and I have about two things more to write.

On what it’s about:
It’s about Babar, the first Mughal emperor. His ghost returns and appears in modern-day London to a group of four young people who are about to carry out a strike, and they have some arguments and conversations, things like that.

Pic: Art of Noise @ Zenzi Mills