An idiotic libretto for an opera that you compose as you go

I like to run this goofy exercise where I give out a bunch of little libretti and groups of people can perform it as a modernist opera, improvising the music as they go, with or without my atonal accompaniment on the piano. The trick to being good at it is this: you have to look at your text and work out what is recitative and what can be a little aria. Then you need the gall to repeat text and to strive for different musical feels for different bits of text.

This one came out of the Paul McCartney song Golden Slumbers, in a way. Apparently he knew there is an old song called Golden Slumbers, and he knew a few of the words, but he didn't know the song. So, as in a dream when you dream an episode of your favourite TV show but IT'S A NEW EPISODE that you made up - AWESOME! and a bit odd in some ways maybe - he just wrote what he thought Golden Slumbers would be like. So this one is kind of stuff I can half-remember about Chekhov except mad and wrong.

MODERNIST OPERA EXERCISE: RUSSIAN SCENE

Cast: three sisters, Ivana, Anna and Natasha; their Father, Ivan Semionovitch; Natasha's lover, Captain Petrova.

Ivana, Anna, Natasha (trio): Life is so dull! How tedious it all is, here in the countryside!
Ivana: Why can't we go back to Moscow!
Anna: There is no-one interesting here in the country!
Natasha: There were such nice gentlemen in Moscow!
Ivana, Anna, Natasha (trio): Life is so dull! How teeeeeeeeeeedious it all is,
Ivana: Here
Anna: - - in the
Natasha: - - - countryside!
Father: (bursting in angrily) My daughters, my daughters! Are you all sitting about complaining again? (happy reverie) The orchard is in bloom, the peasants are dancing in the fields, and the brook sings so happily at the bottom of the garden! (angrily) Why are you all complaining again?
Ivana, Anna, Natasha (trio): We are so lonely!
Ivana: All our friends are away!
Anna: No-one comes to see us!
Natasha: Life is soooooooooo dull!
Father: But Captain Petrova is coming to see you this morning Natasha! In fact, here he is now!
Natasha: O I shall faint!
Ivana: Pinch your cheeks so they are red!
Anna: Stand up straight so you look taller!
Captain Petrova (off): Where are you, dear ladies? Are you there, Sir?
Father: Come through, dear Captain! The girls are all here waiting! (the girls shush their father angrily)
Captain Petrova: What a delightful estate you have here, Sir! Though smaller than my father's, it is much more beautiful. As I came up, the birds were singing, and the little lambs in the fields were whiter than apple blossom! And today is the perfect Spring day - (to Natasha) do you not think so Miss Semionovitch?
Natasha: Yes indeed! the brook sings so happily at the bottom of the garden!
Anna: The peasants are dancing in the fields!
Ivana: The or-or-or-orchard is in bloooooooooom!

This exercise was designed as a way to get nervous Nellies and Ninos to lift their voices and to experiment with the control of theatrical and musical time. I'm about to try it in a new class where there is an excellent Korean student whose English is a bit iffy. I'm not sure how it will work. Anyway.

Clare