WEBVTT
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I would like to write music that is a signal
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of my love for humanity and for my audiences.
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So I try to write music that uplifts and educates,
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but also soothes people and makes them feel loved
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and makes them feel that the world is in fact
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going to be a better place than it sometimes
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seems. The way I try to describe my music, my
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shorthand for it is it's an act of love, an act
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of honor and respect and love for my audiences.
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I would just like to think that my music points
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a way forward for people, that I can bridge the
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gap between a more distant past and a future
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that speaks to, you know, generations to come.
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Hello, friends, and welcome back to The Piano
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Pod. As we close out 2025, I'm excited to bring
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you a year -end bonus episode with composer Stefania
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De Kinesi. Earlier this season, we talked about
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one of her biggest projects, Mikrovitz, a world
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that began in miniatures and grew into something
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expansive. But today, Stefania takes us behind
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the curtain of another groundbreaking work, her
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opera, The Bonfire of the Vanities. She shares
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how she secured the rights to adapt Tom Wolfe's
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novel and reveals some of the surprising secrets
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behind writing for opera. What better way to
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wrap up the year than with a story about risk,
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creativity, and bringing literature to life through
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music. So please enjoy this extra episode with
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composer and advocate for women composers, Stefania
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De Chinesi. Let's talk about your opera. So in
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the car, you know, on the way to Nyack, I mentioned
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you. we talked about your work and one of them
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was opera. I was like, wow, you wrote opera.
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Tell me more about it. And then later you said,
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oh, it was, it's called The Bonfire of the Vanities
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and based on a novel. So, and you have this,
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you told me about this very interesting story,
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how you got the rights to this novel. So I would
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like to know. Sure. So The Bonfire of the Vanities
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was a best selling novel in 1987 by Tom Wolfe.
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And it is the story of a very wealthy Yale bred
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Eastside stockbroker, basically, Wall Street
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guy who is. extremely wealthy and very successful
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with a wife and a kid in an east side park side
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park avenue apartment etc etc and is driving
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his uh mistress home from jfk one day and this
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is in 1987 and he takes a wrong turn by mistake
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it's at night and gets lost in the bronx and
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it's dark and he is his car runs over something
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and he is accosted or he thinks he's accosted
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by two young black teenagers and in their haste
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to get away they run over one of the black teenagers
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by mistake but they run him over nonetheless
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and the story is basically the story of how his
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life unravels bit by bit as a result of this
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this crime coming to light and it's a really
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really searing indictment of of New York life
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and New York excesses. And it takes a very, very
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harsh look at all aspects of New York life and
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all echelons of New York life and all races and
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genders. And it's kind of a real takedown of
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everything about American capitalism. But it's
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a comic piece. I mean, it's a very, very dark
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comedy, but it reminded me always of The Marriage
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of Figaro, which is a quote unquote comedy. But
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also, if you think about it for a moment, is
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is an absolute deconstruction of gender norms
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and social norms and and a terrible indictment
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of the aristocracy. And I mean, it's just it's
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just a brilliant, brilliant piece. So I love
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the book. I mean, it made me laugh out loud from
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start to finish. It's a huge piece. And I met
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Tom Wolfe in a couple of settings. I met him
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first in an organization that I founded humorously
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called the Derriere Guard because I wanted to
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unite artists, not just musicians, but also poets,
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architects, and painters who were interested
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in kind of reviving classical techniques, but
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in a very... forward -going, forward -moving
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way. And I invited Tom Wolfe to be my keynote
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speaker, and he gave a hilarious speech for free.
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That's how I first met him. But I really got
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to know him a little bit better when I was composer
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in residence at the Bridgehampton Music Festival.
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And the festival opened one summer. with a performance
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of my flute concerto, a piece for fluten and
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strings, with Maria Martin brilliantly playing
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the flute part. And Tom just fell in love with
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the piece. Unfortunately, the computer to which
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he wrote some incredible note crashed soon thereafter,
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so I don't have a copy of it. But he really,
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really loved the music. He was just bowled away
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by it. So we stayed kind of in touch on the phone.
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And one day I was saying to him, you know, you're
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a novelist. I'm a composer. Let's collaborate.
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He said, great. And I said, well, the only way
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we can really collaborate that I can think of
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is by working on an opera together. And he thought
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about it for a moment. He said, you know, Stefania,
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I don't know much about opera. My tastes only
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run as highbrow as GNS, Gilbert and Sullivan.
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And I don't know anything about libretti or how
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to write one. So I could be really bad at it.
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And I'm thinking, OK, if somebody tells you they're
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going to be bad at something, maybe you listen.
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So I said to Tom, I said, well, why don't you
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just give me the rights to Bonfire and I'll find
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a librettist and I'll take care of it and turn
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it into an opera. He said, fine, it's yours.
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And that was the extent of the conversation.
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You know, it's yours. And that was, to me, a
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huge gift, because by the time this conversation
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took place. He had sold the rights to the novel
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to Warner Brothers, who wanted to make a movie
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out of it. And he sold it to them both, you know,
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to make movies out of it. But in any form that
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currently exists, and in any form, I have a copy
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of his contract, in any form is yet to be invented.
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So it's a blanket contract. You know, every everything
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about the novel is is owned by Warner Brothers.
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And so I thought, how am I going to get the music?
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I mean, I can't compete with Warner Brothers
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if they ask for any kind of money to Warner Brothers.
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You know, one hundred thousand dollars would
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be nothing. And I'm not, you know. And the gift
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from Tom was that he pulled the music rights
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for me for free. And that was a genuine gift
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and a huge gift to me. And that was because he
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believed in my music. And from that moment on,
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we actually didn't work on the libretto together
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or on the opera together at all. He gave me carte
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blanche to do as I liked. I can show you a copy
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of my contract. The only thing it says in relation
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to Tom Wolfe, his name has to be mentioned in
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any publicity. regarding the opera so it has
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to say it's based on the novel by tom wolf and
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his name has to be in a font that is in size
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and in boldness equivalent to my name that's
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it other than that he let me do whatever i wanted
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to do with it i could have changed the story
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completely i could have turned it into porn i
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could have done anything he didn't he there's
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nothing in the contract and when i realized this
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i called my lawyer and i said you know there's
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nothing here that that restricts what I can do
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with this property beyond keeping the name and
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keeping Tom's name. He said, shh, just sign.
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So that was kind of the backstory of that. So
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I eventually found a brilliant librettist with
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whom I collaborated on this piece, Michael Bergman,
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who is also a film director by training. And
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he wrote the libretto. And we worked on the libretto
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for quite a while, partly because the novel is
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700 plus pages. And a libretto, as the term indicates,
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has to be a short book. It's not a big book.
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It's not a libro. It's a libretto. Because when
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you take speech and you turn it into music, you
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expand the time frame enormously, right? So if
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you take a Shakespearean play, which lasts three
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hours, if you just sang it, never mind added
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instrumental, it would take nine to ten hours
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easily, if not more. Really? I never thought.
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Yeah, yeah. No, once you start the singing, you
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need to take breaths and vowels get elongated.
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It's just you expand the time frame enormously.
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So for a two -hour opera, you don't need more
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than 50 pages of text. Really? Wow, that's fascinating.
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That's why it's a small book. You need a tiny
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little book. So how to take a 700 -page novel
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and condense it into a tiny little book is actually
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a huge undertaking. You have to decide what is
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essential about the story, what is not essential,
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and how do you tell that story dramatically.
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dispensing with a lot of details and a lot of
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the felicities of language so it was kind of
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in some ways you know a terrible thing that we
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did to the novel because it had to be cut down
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to size you know but luckily Tom knew what he
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was getting into and he didn't mind at all he
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was delighted when he was at the premiere of
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the piece absolutely taken with it thought it
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was you know And these these emails I did manage
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to save. He thought it was brilliant and couldn't
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have been more pleased with the outcome, even
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though I changed quite a few of the details.
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Yeah. Like making a black woman the defense attorney.
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Yeah. In the original, Sherman McCoy, who was
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the hapless protagonist, is defended by this
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Irish lawyer. And I thought, you know, I want
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more women in this opera and I want more women
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who have real. active power, you know, and I
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wanted to also make the racial angle more difficult
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and more cutting and more troubled than it is
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in the original, because after all, he runs over
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a Black kid, right? So to have him defended by
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a woman who's in the backstory, my mind is she's
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a Harvard educated Black female attorney. That's
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my backstory. but to have him defended by a Black
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woman who decides to defend him because he's
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actually not the one who ran over the kid. It's
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his mistress. And she is the only person actually
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in the opera who has a sense of genuine virtue
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and genuine justice. She does not want anyone
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wronged who deserves to have something. So she
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knows he's not guilty and she decides that she
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will get him exonerated. And she does. Wow. She's
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that smart and that, you know, so anyway, it's
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a long and complicated story. But that was also,
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you know, for me, very satisfying to create.
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She's not the heroine exactly of the story. There
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are no heroes in this story. It's kind of a little
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bit like Marriage of Figaro. It's a, you know,
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an ensemble piece. It really is. But it was very,
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very satisfying also to both create a female
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role that was so powerful and a female role that's
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inhabited by an African -American woman. who
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triumphs or, you know, manages to triumph over
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circumstances. And it was also a lot of fun.
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At the end of the book, which is much, much,
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so my opera ends much, much more darkly than
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the book itself, although relatively comically,
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all of Wall Street collapses. The Stock Exchange
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falls. And the last character in the opera looks
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at the audience and tells them to all go home.
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Get out of here. It's like everything has fallen
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apart. So I had a lot of fun with it. But all
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these deviations from the novel, which are quite
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substantial, Tom absolutely adored. He absolutely
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adored. So he was a real gentleman, a real prince
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about all of this stuff. And this is an interesting
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anecdote, perhaps. We had an earlier version
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of the piece in which we did some excerpts as
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a workshop. And we had a couple of arias for
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the female characters, for Sherman McCoy's wife
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and his mistress and et cetera. And afterwards,
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Tom came up to me and he said, you know, this
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beautiful music and so much, so much stuff for
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these women. He looked at me, he said, you know,
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honestly, I wasn't worried or I wasn't thinking
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about what the women were feeling when I was
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writing the novel. And that's a fairly, you know,
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that's a very. honest thing to say and very honorable,
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you know, that he really was focused on the men
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in the novel and the men are the movers and shakers
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in the novel. And arguably they are the movers
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and shakers of Wall Street. But one of the things
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I was able to do, I still had to inhabit the
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male characters. I still had to do, you know,
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Wall Street guys and moving money and all that
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stuff. But I was also able to animate the characters
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of the women in ways that Tom himself, you know,
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didn't. And that was also very, very satisfying.
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So it was just a lot of fun to write this opera.
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I had a great time. Stefania, I'm actually really
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overwhelmed of your, I don't know, depth of just
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understanding of things and because your mind
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works in such a way that it's very different
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from just, you know, I mean, I'm a musician,
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I play the piano, but Very different, you know,
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being a composer, you just have this, I don't
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know, the way your mind works is very different.
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Well, that's very kind, but I've heard you play
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piano and the way your fingers work is completely
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different and wonderful. And by the way, for
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our audiences, Yukimi is an extremely, extremely
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accomplished pianist. That performance was amazing.
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So I think we all have our talents. And like
00:14:55.480 --> 00:14:57.279
I said at the beginning, when we were talking,
00:14:57.419 --> 00:15:01.379
I can play piano. I'm not a pianist and I'm a
00:15:01.379 --> 00:15:03.799
terrible pianist, frankly, especially at this
00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:06.960
point in my life, because I don't practice. So
00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:09.259
we all have, you know, we all have things that
00:15:09.259 --> 00:15:13.419
that speak to our souls, you know, and to me,
00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.700
just envisioning things and hearing things in
00:15:15.700 --> 00:15:19.460
my head speaks to my soul in a way that practicing
00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:22.360
the piano just doesn't, you know, and as somebody
00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:24.240
who wrote my crickets, I shouldn't admit this
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:26.460
out loud, but I don't really like practicing
00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:32.070
piano. That's okay. I don't either. I'm a pianist.
00:15:32.350 --> 00:15:34.710
I mean, when I was young, you know, luckily I
00:15:34.710 --> 00:15:37.909
could memorize music very, very quickly. So if
00:15:37.909 --> 00:15:39.730
my piano teacher assigned me, say, a movement
00:15:39.730 --> 00:15:41.570
of a Beethoven sonata, I'd play it a bunch of
00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:44.049
times on Monday. And then I'd have it memorized.
00:15:44.090 --> 00:15:46.090
And then I would play it once or twice through
00:15:46.090 --> 00:15:47.830
each day. And then I would just sit at the piano
00:15:47.830 --> 00:15:50.309
and improvise stuff. So I would sit at the keyboard
00:15:50.309 --> 00:15:53.820
and move my fingers. You know, so I would get
00:15:53.820 --> 00:15:55.779
practice, quote unquote, but I wouldn't actually
00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.460
be practicing the Beethoven sonata. And then
00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:00.700
next Monday, I could get away not quite with
00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:02.860
murder, but with something because I kind of
00:16:02.860 --> 00:16:04.460
knew the piece because I remember how it went.
00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:06.720
And I could kind of get through it because I'd
00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:09.659
been practicing my fingers. But I wasn't actually
00:16:09.659 --> 00:16:11.600
practicing the Beethoven sonata. And you can't
00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:13.799
really get good as a performer if you don't practice
00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:18.350
the piece. Right. So I really was cheating, cheating.
00:16:18.470 --> 00:16:20.769
But, you know, I always knew that I wanted to
00:16:20.769 --> 00:16:22.889
play piano so that I could use my fingers to
00:16:22.889 --> 00:16:27.809
imagine music rather than to play proper repertoire,
00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.610
which is my, you know, it's my downfall, but
00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:33.490
it's the way it's worked. But being able to bring
00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:37.730
all these together, story and words and even
00:16:37.730 --> 00:16:41.490
dance, you work with dance company and just,
00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:44.639
yeah, brilliant. I don't think music that way.
00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:48.240
So, you know. Well, it's a lot of fun. I mean,
00:16:48.259 --> 00:16:52.779
it, you know, it uses all parts of my brain,
00:16:52.899 --> 00:16:55.779
soul, musicality, ears, whatever you want to
00:16:55.779 --> 00:17:00.080
call it. So one of the ways in which I describe
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.399
it is when this is all going well, it's like
00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:05.259
being in heaven. It is absolute paradise, you
00:17:05.259 --> 00:17:08.519
know, because every part of you is just soaring.
00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:10.819
Every, you know, intellectual, emotional, musical.
00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:17.640
When it's not. it is like being in hell, right?
00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:20.799
Because then you feel like, oh my goodness, nothing
00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:23.240
is working. My brain's not working. My emotions
00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.460
are not working. My musicality, where is it?
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:29.640
I'm not thinking anything, right? So it's a mixed
00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:31.640
blessing, but most of the time it's a blessing.
00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:34.500
Thank you so much for joining me for this special
00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:37.259
year and bonus of the PianoPod with Stefania
00:17:37.259 --> 00:17:40.319
DeKennessey. I loved hearing how she transformed
00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:43.200
the bonfire of the vanities into an opera and
00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:46.119
shared her insights on the craft of writing for
00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:49.339
voice and theater. And of course, if you haven't
00:17:49.339 --> 00:17:51.859
yet caught our full conversation on micro -bits,
00:17:52.019 --> 00:17:56.130
be sure to check out Season 6, Episode 3. As
00:17:56.130 --> 00:17:59.950
we step into 2026, I want to take a moment to
00:17:59.950 --> 00:18:02.630
thank you for the incredible support this past
00:18:02.630 --> 00:18:05.690
year, especially for our very first live event.
00:18:05.869 --> 00:18:09.230
It was such a success, and I was so moved by
00:18:09.230 --> 00:18:11.950
all the encouraging words and energy you brought
00:18:11.950 --> 00:18:15.890
to the experience. Please like, subscribe, leave
00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:19.089
a review, or share this with a friend. It truly
00:18:19.089 --> 00:18:22.349
helps keep the show going. Here's to another
00:18:22.349 --> 00:18:25.809
year of music, discovery, and connection. Happy
00:18:25.809 --> 00:18:28.809
New Year, and I'll see you soon on the PianoPod.
00:00:09.029 --> 00:00:13.310
I would like to write music that is a signal
00:00:13.310 --> 00:00:15.990
of my love for humanity and for my audiences.
00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:19.710
So I try to write music that uplifts and educates,
00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:23.969
but also soothes people and makes them feel loved
00:00:23.969 --> 00:00:26.149
and makes them feel that the world is in fact
00:00:26.149 --> 00:00:27.949
going to be a better place than it sometimes
00:00:27.949 --> 00:00:31.070
seems. The way I try to describe my music, my
00:00:31.070 --> 00:00:33.909
shorthand for it is it's an act of love, an act
00:00:33.909 --> 00:00:36.869
of honor and respect and love for my audiences.
00:00:38.829 --> 00:00:42.469
I would just like to think that my music points
00:00:42.469 --> 00:00:46.530
a way forward for people, that I can bridge the
00:00:46.530 --> 00:00:49.869
gap between a more distant past and a future
00:00:49.869 --> 00:00:53.189
that speaks to, you know, generations to come.
00:00:58.289 --> 00:01:00.630
Hello, friends, and welcome back to The Piano
00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:04.590
Pod. As we close out 2025, I'm excited to bring
00:01:04.590 --> 00:01:07.849
you a year -end bonus episode with composer Stefania
00:01:07.849 --> 00:01:11.019
De Kinesi. Earlier this season, we talked about
00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:14.500
one of her biggest projects, Mikrovitz, a world
00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:17.219
that began in miniatures and grew into something
00:01:17.219 --> 00:01:20.780
expansive. But today, Stefania takes us behind
00:01:20.780 --> 00:01:23.739
the curtain of another groundbreaking work, her
00:01:23.739 --> 00:01:27.640
opera, The Bonfire of the Vanities. She shares
00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:31.060
how she secured the rights to adapt Tom Wolfe's
00:01:31.060 --> 00:01:34.599
novel and reveals some of the surprising secrets
00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:37.920
behind writing for opera. What better way to
00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:41.239
wrap up the year than with a story about risk,
00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:44.480
creativity, and bringing literature to life through
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:47.500
music. So please enjoy this extra episode with
00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:50.900
composer and advocate for women composers, Stefania
00:01:50.900 --> 00:01:58.819
De Chinesi. Let's talk about your opera. So in
00:01:58.819 --> 00:02:02.280
the car, you know, on the way to Nyack, I mentioned
00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:05.579
you. we talked about your work and one of them
00:02:05.579 --> 00:02:07.400
was opera. I was like, wow, you wrote opera.
00:02:07.780 --> 00:02:10.520
Tell me more about it. And then later you said,
00:02:10.699 --> 00:02:14.099
oh, it was, it's called The Bonfire of the Vanities
00:02:14.099 --> 00:02:17.500
and based on a novel. So, and you have this,
00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:20.620
you told me about this very interesting story,
00:02:20.740 --> 00:02:27.419
how you got the rights to this novel. So I would
00:02:27.419 --> 00:02:31.370
like to know. Sure. So The Bonfire of the Vanities
00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:35.710
was a best selling novel in 1987 by Tom Wolfe.
00:02:35.770 --> 00:02:41.169
And it is the story of a very wealthy Yale bred
00:02:41.169 --> 00:02:45.189
Eastside stockbroker, basically, Wall Street
00:02:45.189 --> 00:02:49.909
guy who is. extremely wealthy and very successful
00:02:49.909 --> 00:02:52.169
with a wife and a kid in an east side park side
00:02:52.169 --> 00:02:55.330
park avenue apartment etc etc and is driving
00:02:55.330 --> 00:02:59.250
his uh mistress home from jfk one day and this
00:02:59.250 --> 00:03:02.310
is in 1987 and he takes a wrong turn by mistake
00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:06.090
it's at night and gets lost in the bronx and
00:03:06.090 --> 00:03:10.189
it's dark and he is his car runs over something
00:03:10.189 --> 00:03:13.150
and he is accosted or he thinks he's accosted
00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:17.479
by two young black teenagers and in their haste
00:03:17.479 --> 00:03:19.740
to get away they run over one of the black teenagers
00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:22.159
by mistake but they run him over nonetheless
00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:25.580
and the story is basically the story of how his
00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:29.939
life unravels bit by bit as a result of this
00:03:29.939 --> 00:03:34.219
this crime coming to light and it's a really
00:03:34.219 --> 00:03:39.080
really searing indictment of of New York life
00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:43.139
and New York excesses. And it takes a very, very
00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:46.919
harsh look at all aspects of New York life and
00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:50.300
all echelons of New York life and all races and
00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:53.939
genders. And it's kind of a real takedown of
00:03:53.939 --> 00:03:57.419
everything about American capitalism. But it's
00:03:57.419 --> 00:04:00.479
a comic piece. I mean, it's a very, very dark
00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:04.020
comedy, but it reminded me always of The Marriage
00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:07.020
of Figaro, which is a quote unquote comedy. But
00:04:07.020 --> 00:04:09.099
also, if you think about it for a moment, is
00:04:09.099 --> 00:04:11.860
is an absolute deconstruction of gender norms
00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:15.300
and social norms and and a terrible indictment
00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:18.860
of the aristocracy. And I mean, it's just it's
00:04:18.860 --> 00:04:22.000
just a brilliant, brilliant piece. So I love
00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.980
the book. I mean, it made me laugh out loud from
00:04:23.980 --> 00:04:27.970
start to finish. It's a huge piece. And I met
00:04:27.970 --> 00:04:31.790
Tom Wolfe in a couple of settings. I met him
00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:37.029
first in an organization that I founded humorously
00:04:37.029 --> 00:04:40.529
called the Derriere Guard because I wanted to
00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:44.730
unite artists, not just musicians, but also poets,
00:04:44.850 --> 00:04:48.329
architects, and painters who were interested
00:04:48.329 --> 00:04:53.790
in kind of reviving classical techniques, but
00:04:53.790 --> 00:04:56.620
in a very... forward -going, forward -moving
00:04:56.620 --> 00:04:59.939
way. And I invited Tom Wolfe to be my keynote
00:04:59.939 --> 00:05:02.639
speaker, and he gave a hilarious speech for free.
00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:05.600
That's how I first met him. But I really got
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.459
to know him a little bit better when I was composer
00:05:08.459 --> 00:05:11.939
in residence at the Bridgehampton Music Festival.
00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:16.620
And the festival opened one summer. with a performance
00:05:16.620 --> 00:05:19.180
of my flute concerto, a piece for fluten and
00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:21.519
strings, with Maria Martin brilliantly playing
00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:24.620
the flute part. And Tom just fell in love with
00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:27.439
the piece. Unfortunately, the computer to which
00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:31.339
he wrote some incredible note crashed soon thereafter,
00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:33.800
so I don't have a copy of it. But he really,
00:05:33.819 --> 00:05:35.620
really loved the music. He was just bowled away
00:05:35.620 --> 00:05:40.180
by it. So we stayed kind of in touch on the phone.
00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:42.139
And one day I was saying to him, you know, you're
00:05:42.139 --> 00:05:44.439
a novelist. I'm a composer. Let's collaborate.
00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:47.620
He said, great. And I said, well, the only way
00:05:47.620 --> 00:05:49.560
we can really collaborate that I can think of
00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:52.579
is by working on an opera together. And he thought
00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:55.000
about it for a moment. He said, you know, Stefania,
00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:59.480
I don't know much about opera. My tastes only
00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:02.180
run as highbrow as GNS, Gilbert and Sullivan.
00:06:02.939 --> 00:06:05.779
And I don't know anything about libretti or how
00:06:05.779 --> 00:06:08.819
to write one. So I could be really bad at it.
00:06:10.910 --> 00:06:13.029
And I'm thinking, OK, if somebody tells you they're
00:06:13.029 --> 00:06:15.589
going to be bad at something, maybe you listen.
00:06:16.310 --> 00:06:19.910
So I said to Tom, I said, well, why don't you
00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:23.110
just give me the rights to Bonfire and I'll find
00:06:23.110 --> 00:06:24.689
a librettist and I'll take care of it and turn
00:06:24.689 --> 00:06:26.629
it into an opera. He said, fine, it's yours.
00:06:28.009 --> 00:06:29.810
And that was the extent of the conversation.
00:06:29.910 --> 00:06:32.649
You know, it's yours. And that was, to me, a
00:06:32.649 --> 00:06:35.589
huge gift, because by the time this conversation
00:06:35.589 --> 00:06:38.930
took place. He had sold the rights to the novel
00:06:38.930 --> 00:06:42.410
to Warner Brothers, who wanted to make a movie
00:06:42.410 --> 00:06:46.769
out of it. And he sold it to them both, you know,
00:06:46.769 --> 00:06:51.970
to make movies out of it. But in any form that
00:06:51.970 --> 00:06:54.230
currently exists, and in any form, I have a copy
00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:58.149
of his contract, in any form is yet to be invented.
00:06:59.070 --> 00:07:01.930
So it's a blanket contract. You know, every everything
00:07:01.930 --> 00:07:05.670
about the novel is is owned by Warner Brothers.
00:07:06.170 --> 00:07:09.110
And so I thought, how am I going to get the music?
00:07:09.129 --> 00:07:10.829
I mean, I can't compete with Warner Brothers
00:07:10.829 --> 00:07:13.069
if they ask for any kind of money to Warner Brothers.
00:07:13.149 --> 00:07:15.029
You know, one hundred thousand dollars would
00:07:15.029 --> 00:07:18.230
be nothing. And I'm not, you know. And the gift
00:07:18.230 --> 00:07:20.470
from Tom was that he pulled the music rights
00:07:20.470 --> 00:07:24.959
for me for free. And that was a genuine gift
00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:28.180
and a huge gift to me. And that was because he
00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:32.459
believed in my music. And from that moment on,
00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:35.040
we actually didn't work on the libretto together
00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:38.060
or on the opera together at all. He gave me carte
00:07:38.060 --> 00:07:41.639
blanche to do as I liked. I can show you a copy
00:07:41.639 --> 00:07:44.819
of my contract. The only thing it says in relation
00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:48.319
to Tom Wolfe, his name has to be mentioned in
00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:51.100
any publicity. regarding the opera so it has
00:07:51.100 --> 00:07:54.000
to say it's based on the novel by tom wolf and
00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.579
his name has to be in a font that is in size
00:07:57.579 --> 00:08:02.100
and in boldness equivalent to my name that's
00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:05.939
it other than that he let me do whatever i wanted
00:08:05.939 --> 00:08:07.800
to do with it i could have changed the story
00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:10.040
completely i could have turned it into porn i
00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:13.139
could have done anything he didn't he there's
00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:14.980
nothing in the contract and when i realized this
00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:16.939
i called my lawyer and i said you know there's
00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:19.850
nothing here that that restricts what I can do
00:08:19.850 --> 00:08:22.629
with this property beyond keeping the name and
00:08:22.629 --> 00:08:24.889
keeping Tom's name. He said, shh, just sign.
00:08:27.129 --> 00:08:32.110
So that was kind of the backstory of that. So
00:08:32.110 --> 00:08:34.870
I eventually found a brilliant librettist with
00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:38.309
whom I collaborated on this piece, Michael Bergman,
00:08:38.429 --> 00:08:42.879
who is also a film director by training. And
00:08:42.879 --> 00:08:46.519
he wrote the libretto. And we worked on the libretto
00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:50.759
for quite a while, partly because the novel is
00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:55.539
700 plus pages. And a libretto, as the term indicates,
00:08:55.799 --> 00:08:58.700
has to be a short book. It's not a big book.
00:08:58.820 --> 00:09:02.039
It's not a libro. It's a libretto. Because when
00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:05.120
you take speech and you turn it into music, you
00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:09.879
expand the time frame enormously, right? So if
00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:12.419
you take a Shakespearean play, which lasts three
00:09:12.419 --> 00:09:15.539
hours, if you just sang it, never mind added
00:09:15.539 --> 00:09:17.460
instrumental, it would take nine to ten hours
00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:21.019
easily, if not more. Really? I never thought.
00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.019
Yeah, yeah. No, once you start the singing, you
00:09:23.019 --> 00:09:25.639
need to take breaths and vowels get elongated.
00:09:25.659 --> 00:09:28.940
It's just you expand the time frame enormously.
00:09:29.559 --> 00:09:33.080
So for a two -hour opera, you don't need more
00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:38.659
than 50 pages of text. Really? Wow, that's fascinating.
00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:42.220
That's why it's a small book. You need a tiny
00:09:42.220 --> 00:09:44.539
little book. So how to take a 700 -page novel
00:09:44.539 --> 00:09:48.279
and condense it into a tiny little book is actually
00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:51.120
a huge undertaking. You have to decide what is
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:53.139
essential about the story, what is not essential,
00:09:53.259 --> 00:09:54.879
and how do you tell that story dramatically.
00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.679
dispensing with a lot of details and a lot of
00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:01.519
the felicities of language so it was kind of
00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:04.159
in some ways you know a terrible thing that we
00:10:04.159 --> 00:10:05.940
did to the novel because it had to be cut down
00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:10.519
to size you know but luckily Tom knew what he
00:10:10.519 --> 00:10:12.860
was getting into and he didn't mind at all he
00:10:12.860 --> 00:10:14.740
was delighted when he was at the premiere of
00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:17.360
the piece absolutely taken with it thought it
00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:20.220
was you know And these these emails I did manage
00:10:20.220 --> 00:10:22.919
to save. He thought it was brilliant and couldn't
00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:25.559
have been more pleased with the outcome, even
00:10:25.559 --> 00:10:28.080
though I changed quite a few of the details.
00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:32.200
Yeah. Like making a black woman the defense attorney.
00:10:32.539 --> 00:10:35.580
Yeah. In the original, Sherman McCoy, who was
00:10:35.580 --> 00:10:38.820
the hapless protagonist, is defended by this
00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:42.460
Irish lawyer. And I thought, you know, I want
00:10:42.460 --> 00:10:45.620
more women in this opera and I want more women
00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:51.039
who have real. active power, you know, and I
00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:55.460
wanted to also make the racial angle more difficult
00:10:55.460 --> 00:11:00.840
and more cutting and more troubled than it is
00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:02.840
in the original, because after all, he runs over
00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:06.940
a Black kid, right? So to have him defended by
00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:10.019
a woman who's in the backstory, my mind is she's
00:11:10.019 --> 00:11:12.240
a Harvard educated Black female attorney. That's
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:16.340
my backstory. but to have him defended by a Black
00:11:16.340 --> 00:11:19.179
woman who decides to defend him because he's
00:11:19.179 --> 00:11:21.500
actually not the one who ran over the kid. It's
00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:25.840
his mistress. And she is the only person actually
00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:30.240
in the opera who has a sense of genuine virtue
00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:33.759
and genuine justice. She does not want anyone
00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:38.240
wronged who deserves to have something. So she
00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.460
knows he's not guilty and she decides that she
00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:45.690
will get him exonerated. And she does. Wow. She's
00:11:45.690 --> 00:11:47.929
that smart and that, you know, so anyway, it's
00:11:47.929 --> 00:11:49.830
a long and complicated story. But that was also,
00:11:49.889 --> 00:11:52.730
you know, for me, very satisfying to create.
00:11:52.830 --> 00:11:55.250
She's not the heroine exactly of the story. There
00:11:55.250 --> 00:11:57.750
are no heroes in this story. It's kind of a little
00:11:57.750 --> 00:11:59.730
bit like Marriage of Figaro. It's a, you know,
00:11:59.730 --> 00:12:03.250
an ensemble piece. It really is. But it was very,
00:12:03.289 --> 00:12:06.029
very satisfying also to both create a female
00:12:06.029 --> 00:12:09.889
role that was so powerful and a female role that's
00:12:09.889 --> 00:12:13.179
inhabited by an African -American woman. who
00:12:13.179 --> 00:12:15.919
triumphs or, you know, manages to triumph over
00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:19.960
circumstances. And it was also a lot of fun.
00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:23.620
At the end of the book, which is much, much,
00:12:23.620 --> 00:12:26.179
so my opera ends much, much more darkly than
00:12:26.179 --> 00:12:28.519
the book itself, although relatively comically,
00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:31.519
all of Wall Street collapses. The Stock Exchange
00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:36.440
falls. And the last character in the opera looks
00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:38.480
at the audience and tells them to all go home.
00:12:38.779 --> 00:12:42.200
Get out of here. It's like everything has fallen
00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:45.659
apart. So I had a lot of fun with it. But all
00:12:45.659 --> 00:12:48.259
these deviations from the novel, which are quite
00:12:48.259 --> 00:12:51.480
substantial, Tom absolutely adored. He absolutely
00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:55.879
adored. So he was a real gentleman, a real prince
00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:59.019
about all of this stuff. And this is an interesting
00:12:59.019 --> 00:13:01.980
anecdote, perhaps. We had an earlier version
00:13:01.980 --> 00:13:04.419
of the piece in which we did some excerpts as
00:13:04.419 --> 00:13:07.879
a workshop. And we had a couple of arias for
00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:10.480
the female characters, for Sherman McCoy's wife
00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:14.379
and his mistress and et cetera. And afterwards,
00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:16.240
Tom came up to me and he said, you know, this
00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:19.220
beautiful music and so much, so much stuff for
00:13:19.220 --> 00:13:20.840
these women. He looked at me, he said, you know,
00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:24.360
honestly, I wasn't worried or I wasn't thinking
00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:26.080
about what the women were feeling when I was
00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:30.299
writing the novel. And that's a fairly, you know,
00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:34.899
that's a very. honest thing to say and very honorable,
00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:37.019
you know, that he really was focused on the men
00:13:37.019 --> 00:13:39.860
in the novel and the men are the movers and shakers
00:13:39.860 --> 00:13:41.860
in the novel. And arguably they are the movers
00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:44.580
and shakers of Wall Street. But one of the things
00:13:44.580 --> 00:13:47.860
I was able to do, I still had to inhabit the
00:13:47.860 --> 00:13:49.879
male characters. I still had to do, you know,
00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:53.379
Wall Street guys and moving money and all that
00:13:53.379 --> 00:13:55.820
stuff. But I was also able to animate the characters
00:13:55.820 --> 00:13:59.220
of the women in ways that Tom himself, you know,
00:13:59.220 --> 00:14:03.559
didn't. And that was also very, very satisfying.
00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:06.480
So it was just a lot of fun to write this opera.
00:14:07.059 --> 00:14:11.340
I had a great time. Stefania, I'm actually really
00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:18.580
overwhelmed of your, I don't know, depth of just
00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:22.059
understanding of things and because your mind
00:14:22.059 --> 00:14:25.340
works in such a way that it's very different
00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:29.240
from just, you know, I mean, I'm a musician,
00:14:29.340 --> 00:14:31.460
I play the piano, but Very different, you know,
00:14:31.460 --> 00:14:35.480
being a composer, you just have this, I don't
00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:38.139
know, the way your mind works is very different.
00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:40.600
Well, that's very kind, but I've heard you play
00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:43.120
piano and the way your fingers work is completely
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.399
different and wonderful. And by the way, for
00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:48.259
our audiences, Yukimi is an extremely, extremely
00:14:48.259 --> 00:14:50.899
accomplished pianist. That performance was amazing.
00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:55.480
So I think we all have our talents. And like
00:14:55.480 --> 00:14:57.279
I said at the beginning, when we were talking,
00:14:57.419 --> 00:15:01.379
I can play piano. I'm not a pianist and I'm a
00:15:01.379 --> 00:15:03.799
terrible pianist, frankly, especially at this
00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:06.960
point in my life, because I don't practice. So
00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:09.259
we all have, you know, we all have things that
00:15:09.259 --> 00:15:13.419
that speak to our souls, you know, and to me,
00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.700
just envisioning things and hearing things in
00:15:15.700 --> 00:15:19.460
my head speaks to my soul in a way that practicing
00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:22.360
the piano just doesn't, you know, and as somebody
00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:24.240
who wrote my crickets, I shouldn't admit this
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:26.460
out loud, but I don't really like practicing
00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:32.070
piano. That's okay. I don't either. I'm a pianist.
00:15:32.350 --> 00:15:34.710
I mean, when I was young, you know, luckily I
00:15:34.710 --> 00:15:37.909
could memorize music very, very quickly. So if
00:15:37.909 --> 00:15:39.730
my piano teacher assigned me, say, a movement
00:15:39.730 --> 00:15:41.570
of a Beethoven sonata, I'd play it a bunch of
00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:44.049
times on Monday. And then I'd have it memorized.
00:15:44.090 --> 00:15:46.090
And then I would play it once or twice through
00:15:46.090 --> 00:15:47.830
each day. And then I would just sit at the piano
00:15:47.830 --> 00:15:50.309
and improvise stuff. So I would sit at the keyboard
00:15:50.309 --> 00:15:53.820
and move my fingers. You know, so I would get
00:15:53.820 --> 00:15:55.779
practice, quote unquote, but I wouldn't actually
00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.460
be practicing the Beethoven sonata. And then
00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:00.700
next Monday, I could get away not quite with
00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:02.860
murder, but with something because I kind of
00:16:02.860 --> 00:16:04.460
knew the piece because I remember how it went.
00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:06.720
And I could kind of get through it because I'd
00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:09.659
been practicing my fingers. But I wasn't actually
00:16:09.659 --> 00:16:11.600
practicing the Beethoven sonata. And you can't
00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:13.799
really get good as a performer if you don't practice
00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:18.350
the piece. Right. So I really was cheating, cheating.
00:16:18.470 --> 00:16:20.769
But, you know, I always knew that I wanted to
00:16:20.769 --> 00:16:22.889
play piano so that I could use my fingers to
00:16:22.889 --> 00:16:27.809
imagine music rather than to play proper repertoire,
00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.610
which is my, you know, it's my downfall, but
00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:33.490
it's the way it's worked. But being able to bring
00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:37.730
all these together, story and words and even
00:16:37.730 --> 00:16:41.490
dance, you work with dance company and just,
00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:44.639
yeah, brilliant. I don't think music that way.
00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:48.240
So, you know. Well, it's a lot of fun. I mean,
00:16:48.259 --> 00:16:52.779
it, you know, it uses all parts of my brain,
00:16:52.899 --> 00:16:55.779
soul, musicality, ears, whatever you want to
00:16:55.779 --> 00:17:00.080
call it. So one of the ways in which I describe
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.399
it is when this is all going well, it's like
00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:05.259
being in heaven. It is absolute paradise, you
00:17:05.259 --> 00:17:08.519
know, because every part of you is just soaring.
00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:10.819
Every, you know, intellectual, emotional, musical.
00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:17.640
When it's not. it is like being in hell, right?
00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:20.799
Because then you feel like, oh my goodness, nothing
00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:23.240
is working. My brain's not working. My emotions
00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.460
are not working. My musicality, where is it?
00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:29.640
I'm not thinking anything, right? So it's a mixed
00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:31.640
blessing, but most of the time it's a blessing.
00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:34.500
Thank you so much for joining me for this special
00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:37.259
year and bonus of the PianoPod with Stefania
00:17:37.259 --> 00:17:40.319
DeKennessey. I loved hearing how she transformed
00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:43.200
the bonfire of the vanities into an opera and
00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:46.119
shared her insights on the craft of writing for
00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:49.339
voice and theater. And of course, if you haven't
00:17:49.339 --> 00:17:51.859
yet caught our full conversation on micro -bits,
00:17:52.019 --> 00:17:56.130
be sure to check out Season 6, Episode 3. As
00:17:56.130 --> 00:17:59.950
we step into 2026, I want to take a moment to
00:17:59.950 --> 00:18:02.630
thank you for the incredible support this past
00:18:02.630 --> 00:18:05.690
year, especially for our very first live event.
00:18:05.869 --> 00:18:09.230
It was such a success, and I was so moved by
00:18:09.230 --> 00:18:11.950
all the encouraging words and energy you brought
00:18:11.950 --> 00:18:15.890
to the experience. Please like, subscribe, leave
00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:19.089
a review, or share this with a friend. It truly
00:18:19.089 --> 00:18:22.349
helps keep the show going. Here's to another
00:18:22.349 --> 00:18:25.809
year of music, discovery, and connection. Happy
00:18:25.809 --> 00:18:28.809
New Year, and I'll see you soon on the PianoPod.
