Just like Gene Roddenberry’s Starfleet in the 1960s Star Trek TV series, UCSC is also focused on research and moving the human race forward. For Ben Leeds Carson, a professor of music and director of creative technologies at our university on the hill, bringing together a world-class collection of humans to create an opera based on Star Trek is just another mission.
The Trial of Spock takes place on March 8th and is a concert performance, an opera-in-progress. Focusing on the music and storytelling, this three-act opera is, in one way, a no-frills experience without costumes or stage blocking. In another way it’s a chance to get a window seat on a maiden voyage.
The imaginative, collaborative project involved five librettists and five script writers, including Professor Carson, as well as, John de Lancie, the actor who portrayed Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The idea was originally developed by two biologists, who combined their love of opera and Star Trek.
“Linc Taiz (UCSC Faculty Emeritus in Biology) and partner, Lee Taiz, came together with this idea,” says Carson, humming with excitement. “They thought they should make the double episode from the first season of Star Trek (The Menagerie) into an opera libretto. And, libretto means the book of an opera, the written book of an opera, the language. They went to the beloved local hero, David Cope (who sadly passed away last year), a great composer here in Santa Cruz, asked him if he would compose the music. He didn’t have time, and he recommended me, and the rest is history.”
Carson was not a Trekkie (as fans are called) but he recognized that the story of The Menagerie, is an Orpheus story. “It is a version of the Orpheus trope, which is a trope that permeates mythologies all around the world. I’m not even sure that Gene Roddenberry knew that he was writing an Orpheus story when he wrote it, but it’s deep in our psyches and in our subconscious. Orpheus is one of the most basic stories of opera. The first opera was an Orpheus story. Many of the first great operas in the 1600s were Orpheus stories, and all through opera’s history, the theme of Orpheus has returned,” Carson relates.
The Trial of Spock is a great introduction to the often, high brow, world of opera. Featuring members of the San Francisco and San Jose Opera companies, and will be accompanied by San Francisco’s esteemed Del Sol Quartet. This is going to be an interstellar journey with American roots.
“I would call Star Trek a great American mythology. It’s essentially a part of who we are. Operas often tell stories about characters who we know in our culture. They don’t always start with a fresh idea that no one’s heard of, or a new story. Operas often tell stories that people already know the broad outlines of. And so it builds on audience expectations, and audience morals, and a sense of identity in the audience, that’s already shared. And Star Trek is a mythos that is widely shared in our culture and globally. I love the ability to tell that story that is resting already on some deep foundations in our culture,” Carson explains.
“From the 20th century onward, opera was absolutely the paradigm of elite art. It was Wagner, It was Puccini. It was grand opera. And, it was something that you self-consciously dressed up in your most bourgeois clothing to be seen as a member of high society. That was one of opera’s most important features in the 20th century. But people don’t realize that before grand opera, and for most of the 300 years of opera’s history before then, from 1600 to 1900, for most of those 300 years, opera was actually the most pop form of music.”
The Trial of Spock happens on Sunday, March 8th at 4pm, at The UCSC Music Center Recital Hall, 402 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz. Tickets are free but must be gotten at Eventbrite.com and are going fast. Enter search field The Trial of Spock
