I fixed the overture
So I thought to myself that I could wait until I finished writing and scoring Act II, maybe some of the information I generate as I develop those ideas can be repurposed to cover over the garbage, and then I thought no.
MELISANDE is a closed system that operates chronologically if you're a human and kairologically if you're a fairy. This, by the way, is not something I'm making up as I'm writing this paragraph; it's built into the structure of the original story as well as the script and score of my adaptation. In the King's song, for example, Fortuna implies that he can only see in one direction (backward) and move in another (forward), but she can see everything that happens as the hourglass turns over and over and over again.
Which means that at the beginning of Act I, Fortuna and Malevola have all of the information that exists within the first act and can use any and all of that information in the overture. However, they do not have any of the information that exists during the second act, because the second act is affected by a new form of logic: technology.
Florizel, the prince-slash-engineer, is learning how to manipulate reality in a way that is equivalent to magic. He opens the system and discovers new information.
This means that none of the melodies in Act II can appear in Act I, because they don't exist in the first-act closed system.
More specifically, it means I need to rewrite the overture with what I've already written.
So.
It begins with a single note played repeatedly and, after a melodic magic spell, at exponentially faster tempi.
Then we expand into the two big chorus numbers which just happen to share the same hook (ask yourself why, you know why), and then –
well, what else is going on in the first act?
The King and the Queen are in conflict. Their relationship remains stable because they balance each other out and/or because they've agreed to disagree, but they don't realize that their disintegrated philosophies are stunting their daughter's growth.
I took the King's linear melody, the theme from the invention I wrote for the King's Song, and chopped it up so that it alternated with the Queen's circular melody.
If there were lyrics written into the overture at this point, they would read as follows:
SHE'S THOUGHT HER LIFE, THUS FAR
I'M DOING THIS FOR YOU
AS NOTHING BUT THE BEST
I'M DOING THIS FOR YOU
NO ARBITRARINESS ALLOWED
These are the two wrongest lyrics the King and Queen sing, respectively – and although the audience won't yet know what these lyrics are, they'll be primed to understand that there's something important about these interlocking, conflicting melodies.
Plus the modulation into "I Want" and "Exponential" makes sense, now, and it didn't before, and I love that it just happened ("just happened") to fix itself when I integrated that section of the overture by filling it with the most important information the audience needed to know at that particular moment.
Look, I'm not saying I'm the best composer in the world, this little overture isn't going with us to Mars or anything like that, but I am saying that this piece works today when it didn't work yesterday, and because of that I'd be proud to show it to anybody.
I'll start with you: