The King's Witch

Abstract

Background Notes This is the story of Calon Arang, a Javanese woman of the twelfth century who was destroyed by the king; I have written the story as an operette. As tradition tells it, Calon Arang was a powerful witch from Girah, an area in the Kingdom of Kedhiri. She had a beautiful daughter named Manjali, who could find no husband; for fear of her mother, no man would have her. Calon Arang became so angered by her daughter's plight that she spread pestilence throughout the kingdom. To solve the problem, King Airlangga ordered his most respected priest, Empu Bharada, to get rid of Calon Arang-no easy task as the witch owned a book containing all the secrets of sorcery. Empu Bharada reasoned that to deprive Calon Arang of her power one had to first take possession of her book. He arranged a marriage between one of his students and Manjali. After their nuptial night, the groom stole the book, and in no time at all Calon Arang was divested of her power and destroyed. Needless to say, this traditional tale is told from the king's point of view. One can assume that Calon Arang and her fellow villagers in Girahdestroyed along with the witch-would have composed a different version. The following libretto, written for the music of Indonesian composer Tony Prabowo, starts from this premise. In my opinion, an operette should be very simple. I find European classical opera a ridiculous conceptexcept for two of Mozart's pieces, one of which is The Magic Flute-and I hate Phantom of the Opera-type musicals. I even consider contemporary operas like John Adams's Nixon in China unnecessary stage pieces. That is, I cannot imagine myself creating a theatrical work in which people communicate entirely in songs and arias. Their words should not be translated into musical notes. The music should be composed independently, not linked to the words. That's why my libretto only provides a set of images, a certain mood, allowing the composer to treat the words more as elements of sound in his total composition than as messages to be wrapped in bundles of musical notes. Tony Prabowo understands and supports this idea. He likes Phillip