Chapter 2 - 'Librettising' Astrophysics to create The Flowering Desert
2.1 Introduction
2.4 The Characterisation of TRAPPIST- 1
And as realism is an art of implicit simile, myth is an art of implicit metaphorical identity. (Frye, 1957: 136)
Looking at the night sky has been an activity of human existence for thousands of years. Before our knowledge of astronomy developed, the stars were used to tell stories and create myths. These myths were a way of interpreting the mysterious natural environment, and helped humans understand their place within it (Helge, 2010). As such the night sky and mythology are already inextricably linked to an understanding of the workings of the universe. Key influences for this work were based on an exploration of mythologies which related to the various characters, objects and philosophies represented in the system and its discovery.
The various ontological approaches (some of which are touched on in chapter 1) to the world and other objects in it is tangentially related to the study of astrophysics, which depends on making observations of objects that before were not known to exist. This meant that one major element I wanted to tackle within the narrative for this opera was how our observation of something both changes the way it might exist, but also changes the way we conceive of other things outside of it: how the discovery of something new can alter our perceptions of the world in order to take up space in our constructed views of reality. As already described, the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system had a strong impact on the way we think of the origins of life in the universe.
After getting to grips with the physics and concepts behind this research, as well as researching traditional, mythical narrative, and archetypes to develop the characters and story within the piece I began sketching out the characters. The characters I chose to represent in this libretto are:
1. The Measurer (an astrophysicist) - to incorporate the experience of the scientist and the shift away from a sun-centred approach to astrophysics. The are named Measurer in reference to their empirical role as a scientist.
2. Pantele (mostly based on planet TRAPPIST-1e) - the planet with the highest potential habitability (Fauchez et al., 2020), to explore the dynamics of the system, and the conditions for life. The name Pantele is an anagram of Planet-e and also contains the Greek terms pan (whose etymology stems from the Greek for 'whole' and was also the god of the wild, and tele (Greek for 'far away').
3. Xoe (an exocomet in the TRAPPIST-1 system) - to explore the search for extra-terrestrial life. The name Xoe is an anagram of exo and is also a variation of Zoe which means life.
4. Mother Star (the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1a) - to explore the experience of a Red Dwarf Star. It is parental due to it being the centre of the system, and having created the planets in its birth. It supports the position of each planet and acts like a controller of the stellar ecosystem, such as Mother Earth.
I focused the creation of characters for this piece on Jungian archetypes, so that all characters might reflect the postulated collective archetypes of the human psyche, the consciousness of the Measurer, and the objects within the TRAPPIST-1 system. The characters within the system (Pantele, Xoe and the Mother Star) are all part of an uprising of understanding from the Measurer’s subconscious, and so present themselves as a narrative of thoughts, while the Measurer experiences the profound moment of discovering another planetary system. Jung’s work has a deep relationship with the understanding of mythical archetypal figures, which is also a key element to the creation of many traditional operatic libretto. Using his archetypal forms helped me to embed both the science and the more traditional forms of opera in the work. I particularly focused my characters on the Jungian shadow, anima/animus, persona and self. During this process I made sure to keep aware of the original context of Jung’s works. The society in which he was working was greatly different in many ways to how we live today therefore engaging with the meaning of his archetypes in relation to contemporary psychological studies was also an important part of the approach to his work.
The shadow is the representation of the subconscious, and specifically the darker parts of the personality. These may take the form of jealousy, repressed desires, or avarice, and can often be represented through a villainous character or trickster. The anima/animus represent the life force within the psyche and are seen as the giver of creativity and ambition. They are contra-sexual inner organs: the Anima is the female projection in a male psyche and the Animus the male projection in a female psyche. It is also deemed highly important as it can carry messages between the conscious and the subconscious, represented also by the trickster. The persona is the outwards facing, social mask, of the psyche. This could be very different to the true Self. It is the go-between from the ego to the external world and is often represented by a hero character. The self is the embodiment of all the above parts. It is also important to note that even though I have described these archetypes as very separate, they will actually overlap and spill into each other within the individual’s psyche.
A main reason I chose to have a human character in this opera was the great importance the discovery had on moving the focus of research in astrophysics forward, from an anthropocentric to biocentric outlook. Whereas life had been supposed to be most likely in planetary systems like our own it is now thought to be possible in those very different to ours. The anthropomorphism of the system in the Measurer’s mind helps the character of the Measurer to shift their perspective of the value of the TRAPPIST-1 system itself. This shift in thinking is not only present in the work of astrophysicists but has been actively pursued by researchers in fields across disciplines such as law (De Lucia, 2014), theology (Hoffman & Sandelands, 2005) and philosophy.