Ça Ira (With DVD) [Hybrid SACD, SACD]

I had always wanted to use the quote above, which paraphrases from a remark made by General Canrobert upon witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade to their certain deaths in the Crimean War, as the title to a review of The Final Cut, but now Roger Waters presents me with a far better subject for such a review title.

Ironies linger. A previous reviewer has remarked, perhaps defensively, about Roger Waters' disdain for Andrew Lloyd Webber, made so wonderfully overt in Amused To Death. But there is no fine distinction between musical and opera that I know of - and I have no doubt Lloyd Webber too would like to be taken more seriously as a classical composer than he is. The opera set are a hellishly snobbish crowd, and not just any Johnny-Come-Lately will be feted as a genuine composer. Undoubtedly Roger Waters - who is, after all, a ROCK MUSICIAN, will find himself in exactly the same spot as Lloyd Webber, though on the strength of past comments, I doubt he will get much sympathy from him.

That said, this is a very presentable, listenable, outing, and it sounds cracking in 5.1 surround sound on the SACD. I dare say Puccini won't be rocking in his box - nor would Waters be expecting him to - but while it doesn't forge any new ground in orchestral music what Ca Ira does do is help contextualise much of Waters earlier, more overtly rock, oeuvre. There is something undeniably symphonic about Waters' use of themes and motifs through his music and I think this might explain his much talked-about lack of melody (though how anyone could accuse "The Gunner's Dream", or "Nobody Home", or "Southampton Dock" of lacking melody is beyond me): rather than writing three minute pop songs, Waters is more interested in focussing on making a broader musical statement.

Certainly, and just as with his earlier rock records, familiar themes - on grand scales and small ones - abound. The opening riff from The Wall's "In The Flesh" - as transliterated into "Dunroamin, Duncarin, Dunlivin" on The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking - is further adjusted and used as a recurring motif on the first side of Ca Ira. The shrieking, fade out voice from the end of "One of My Turns" is reprised - admittedly by a powerful tenor, but the similarity is unmistakeable. The happy sounds of summer from "Goodbye Blue Sky" are back, and I thought I heard the chord progression resembling the one from "The Gunner's Dream" also. Waters does make several cameo appearances, ordering the firing squads in the manner of Pink in The Wall. In one piece, the cellos are, I'm sure, playing the riff to the Bee Gee's Tragedy. Not sure if that was a deliberate reference, though.

Nevertheless, the old boy has definitely mellowed. An accompanying DVD shows him lounging around during the writing of the opera on the lawn of his stately mansion in Hampshire with his French librettists, showing more of the leg and chest of a stately gentleman than a commoner really ought to see. But the control-freakery hasn't entirely abated: during vocal recording sessions he would sit right on the soloist' shoulder and comment on the performance of takes, sometimes even singing along. Bryn Terfel didn't look altogether thrilled to be told how to sing by a man who famously sounds like a cat being strangled.

The result, however, is undeniably an audiophile masterpiece. I don't know much about classical music apart from what I like, but this sounds positively peachy. Some particularly super guillotine effects sweep across the soundstage from time to time (perhaps in lieu of the missile from Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert).

It's early days. A new piece by Roger Waters takes months to fully get itself inside your head. Give it time. But don't mourn the missing electric guitar.

Olly Buxton

I definitely enjoy classical music, and I do appreciate the opera genre, but I didn't own any classical operas on CD. Until now: I've just bought "Ca Ira" by former Pink Floyd bassist/composer Roger Waters. Like many other longtime Waters/Pink Floyd fans, I had known about Roger's "Ca Ira" project for some time. In the pipeline for 15 long years, it almost seemed as if "Ca Ira" would never see the light of day. But Roger has finally finished it and released it to the world, and, I must admit, it's a very impressive work. Basing his classical opera on an original libretto by Etienne & Nadine Roda-Gil, Waters' "Ca Ira" is the story of the French Revolution, with the opera metaphorically set inside a circus ring, complete with a ringmaster, clowns, and acrobats acting out the tale. To make a long review short, I'll just say this: I think the music is quite powerful, the libretto (in english) is very intriguing, and the vocal performances by such opera veterans as Bryn Terfel, Paul Groves and Ying Huang are all superb. I also like the various sound effects, such as guns & cannons being fired, dogs barking, and the falling of the guillotine, as they all add to the mood & atmosphere of the piece. And the sound quality is great, too."Ca Ira" may not be for everybody, as some of Roger's fans may have set their expectations of it too high. My advice to them is this: don't expect to hear "The Wall Part II," or anything "Floydian" for that matter. This is a *classical* opera, not a rock opera. There's no guitar solos, no rock elements whatsoever, and Roger doesn't sing on it, either. But Roger HAS done an incredible job here, and, after waiting 15 years for it, I'm just happy to finally hear "Ca Ira" at last. And it is very, very good stuff indeed. I hope I can see it performed on the live stage in the near future, too. I strongly recommend picking up Roger Waters' "Ca Ira."

Forget everything you think you know about "rock" for a few hours. Forget your accumulated opinions about the lyricist and bass player on "Dark Side of the Moon" for a little while. There are connections, but let them happen later. Listen to this as an opera.

I have been an opera fan for forty years. My iPod is stuffed with operas from German, Italian, French, English, and Russian traditions. As far as modern operas go, I never liked the way things turned minimalist. What Debussy, Prokofiev, Joplin, and Britten established seemed to be forgotten for some fad of repetitive drivel. But this fits in where those minimalist things do not. It has melodies, for goodness sake! Imagine that! And the harmony fits in between the simplicity of popular music and the complexity of academic art music.

The subject is similar to Andrea Chenier, but the music is more modern. The music is similar to War and Peace, without the pomposity. I believe this is the direction opera should have gone. Perhaps it will, yet.

And then, after you listen to this on its own terms, as a modern opera, go ahead and think about Roger Waters and his musical career. During the forty years that Waters has been making music, about five were spent "riding the gravy train". His work in that period was the most commercially successful of its time. But that was preceded by ten years of experimentation, resulting in two movie scores and several moderately succesful albums. One could prove easily that his band's lengthy improvisations are the foundation of New Age music. There is no doubt that he took the idea of the concept album and the rock opera to their ultimate attainments. In the twenty-ish years following his departure from that band, he continued to create concept albums. But also during that time, he started work on this project. What do concept albums, half-hour spacey improvs, and opera have in common? Concepts, of course. We opera fans have always known about an overall concept. That's the whole point that the late rennaisance composers were trying to accomplish when they set Greek dramas to music. They had read in Plato that the dramas were sung, so they revived the idea. It was a simple concept, but it resulted in a musical genre that has lasted nearly 500 years.

In the end, I hope other opera fans will understand. I could say "it took a rock musician to bring the heart back into opera", but I won't, because Roger Waters is only a rock musician once in a while, when the spirit moves him. The rest of the time, he's a modern artist with a classical soul.

I wonder, now that waters has learned all this classical harmony and orchestration, how will it affect his future music. I can't wait to find out.