The other great experience we had in New York was watching our sons Will and Andre bond with Sid and Stan, two boys from Australia who played soccer with them in Central Park, delighting in the fact that they shared the same soccer heroes (Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas).  We later met the parents, Annette and Michael and their lovely older brother Joe  for dinner and had a spectacular time at Tavern on the Green in Central Park.

Meeting Australians in Central Park seemed somehow fitting given our new connection to this country through Kevin and Victor.

Did I mention how much I am looking forward to the musical of The Mapmaker’s Opera?  So much so I am already planning our New York trip when the musical hits Broadway there  some day.   What a wonder it would be to watch this work in such a setting—rounding our trip with more cosmology, soulful art and wonderful encounters with engaging new friends in Central Park!

Imagine my surprise and delight when I heard from my agent that an Australian composer had called to enquire about turning my novel into a music drama.  It was all the more surprising given that I had articulated my desire to see such a thing happen when the novel was originally published and was informed that having a book turned into a musical was  rare indeed!

I immediately contacted Kevin—delirious with gratitude that he should be interested in such a thing–and a scant few months later we were meeting in Toronto and discussing the project over dinner in a restaurant on Harbord Street with a glass of wine in hand (Australian, of course!)

Kevin is right—I did write the novel as if I were writing the libretto for an opera.   The scenes would unfold beyond an imaginary curtain as I wrote and I could see the characters traipsing across the stage discussing this and that and living out the details of the drama. The music I tried to create through the rhythm of the words which is the only thing a writer can do—because language can never adequately convey emotions as powerfully as music is able to do.  The only way a writer can ever hope to infuse the text with musicality is through verbal rhythm and rhyme but that too is difficult and it is easy to miss the mark.

Since that wonderful dinner on Harbord Street I have been amazed at the dedication Kevin and his librettist, Victor Kazan, have shown to get the project done and get it done right.  All too often a novel is bought to be made into a film and a writer dreams and waits, and the novel sits on a shelf, waiting for someone to infuse the pages with a new kind of life.  The passion and commitment shown by Victor and Kevin is all the more extraordinary because of that.  The work began immediately and when the outline for the musical was sent to me a couple of months ago, I was delighted with the result.

I think now of Kevin in Spain listening to the most difficult of all art forms, flamenco—difficult because it can never be fully grasped nor completely understood except in that one moment when duende infuses the performance and you are captured heart and soul—-I think of Kevin experiencing that and I remember what the Andalusian poet and dramatist, Garcia Lorca, once wrote:

With idea, sound, gesture, the duende delights in struggling freely with the creator on the edge of the pit. Angel and Muse flee, with violin and compasses, and the duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work.

May the duende continue to accompany Kevin in the creation of his music drama for which the book can serve only as a springboard.   And I thank Kevin and Victor for making Mapmaker’s come alive in a new and magical way.