The Unique Structure of Robert Ashley’s Television Opera
Robert Ashley’s Perfect Lives employs a deliberately unconventional narrative structure that significantly departs from traditional opera and from typical linear storytelling.
The narrative follows an over-the-hill entertainer, Raoul de Noget, and his companion Buddy, “The World’s Greatest Piano Player,” who arrive in a small town and conspire with two locals—Isolde and her brother “D“—to commit a “victimless crime”.
The characters intend to remove a large sum of money from the local bank for precisely one day to let the world know it is missing, before returning it. Ashley describes this as a challenge where, if they are caught, it is a crime, but if they are not, it is art.
The robbery occurs in Episode III (“The Bank”) and serves as the “moment” that triggers mystical or religious experiences among the bank tellers, each of whom sees something that changes their lives.
Perfect Lives – Episodic and Televised Format
Perfect Lives consists of seven episodes. It was created for American television but premiered on British Channel 4 as a weekly series. Each episode was crafted to fit within a 30-minute television slot. This serialized, televised format contributes to its unique structure, even prompting Ashley to call it a “soap opera.”
Non-Linearity and a point of digression
Unlike traditional narratives with clear beginnings and ends, Perfect Lives has no single story; it is a gathering of stories. It unfolds through digressions—moments that wander away from any central plot, opening onto new paths rather than advancing toward a fixed destination. The ending is not predicted at the beginning; instead, it emerges from the point of digression itself. The plot is described as “fragmented and frequently absurdist” and “chronology-hopping.” The opera is straightforward neither in its plot nor in its score, and it doesn’t hinge on a structured narrative but rather on the “specific recitation of patterns of words.” Ashley’s aversion to plot and eventfulness makes it nearly impossible to say what Perfect Lives is about in a conventional sense.
Focus on Details and Accumulation
Ashley’s approach is to gather a substantial number of details that may not seem significant individually but gain meaning as they accumulate. He states that the libretto is not about the refinement of language but “just a huge number of details that make up a story.” These details arise from their association with musical patterns. The desired audience experience, especially when watching the intended television format, is that the details build up over multiple viewings until “finally, there is a glimmer of the larger idea.”
Language and Speech as Music
The narrative is presented through speech and occasional singing. Ashley aimed to reproduce the music of everyday speech; he calls it “song” in the sense that The Iliad was a song. The words are spoken in a specific, rhythmic way, anchored by a constant tempo of 72 beats per minute throughout. Ashley intentionally moved away from setting American English to European musical forms, believing that American English is most successful as words, particularly in popular music.
His operas are described as being “really about language,” using a kind of “speak-singing” that employs the rhythms and timbres of vernacular American speech rather than the heightened vowels of classical opera. The words are meant to sound like another instrument, not merely accompaniment.
Themes and “Ordinary” Plot
The opera centers on events such as the bank robbery and how the characters are affected by them. However, it explores ordinary themes of American life, such as money, confusion, forgetfulness, and time, rather than the typical dramatic tropes found in grand opera, like betrayal, love, or tuberculosis. Some elements are inspired by Ashley’s real life.
Collaboration and Open Structure
The music and structure emerge from collaboration and are not necessarily fixed. It’s an “open structure” in which Ashley allows collaborators, such as “Blue” Gene Tyranny, who provided the harmonic progressions, and the singers who shaped the melodies, to contribute significant content. This empowers them to feel ownership of their roles.
With Perfect Lives, Ashley departs from classical stage traditions. He draws parallels between his work and The Tibetan Book of the Dead or modern television sitcoms. Ultimately, the collection highlights the work’s focus on permanence and impermanence, and the fluidity of memory in American art.
Perfect Lives isn’t about telling a story—it’s about letting one emerge from rhythm, voice, and the accumulation of small moments. It’s not classical. It’s not pop. It’s something else entirely: a strangely familiar, totally American opera for people who don’t even like opera.
