The operas of
Perfect Lives,
Atalanta, and ''Now Eleanor's Idea
comprise a trilogy that maintains a pulse of 72 beats per minute throughout (except for the opera Foreign Experiences
within the Now Eleanor's Idea
tetralogy, which is set to a quarter note=90). The third episode of Perfect Lives'' ("The Bank") contains the focal event of this trilogy. The event itself is hard to describe; after a variety of strange events transpire at the bank, i.e. a fight between dogs that speak Spanish and a bucket of water strategically thrown on the bank manager, it is realized that the bank "has no money in the bank," a consequence of the art/crime action taken by the elopers Gwyn and Ed. In describing these curious events, Ashley introduces all of the bank tellers ("Introducing Susie. Susie works at the bank. That's her job. Mostly she helps people count their money. She likes it."), who each have visions, each representing one of the trilogy's operas. Kate sees the security camera footage from the bank, which contains elements of Episodes 2 through 4 of
Perfect Lives. She is, in effect, watching herself. Linda, Susie, and Jennifer see visions of the three suitors of
Atalanta,
Willard Reynolds,
Bud Powell, and
Max Ernst, who have accidentally appeared in a spaceship at the moment of the bank incident. Eleanor's vision is conceptually of the four operas that bear her name, although Linda's vision introduces its four characters (Linda, Eleanor, Don, and Junior Jr.) as a foursome. The first section of the opera ''Now Eleanor's Idea
, entitled Improvement'', features a retelling of these events.
Now Eleanor's Idea tetralogy ''Now Eleanor's Idea
is an opera tetralogy, part of the larger trilogy described above, based on the idea of heading westward in America, eventually arriving at the Pacific Ocean. Each opera is centered on one of the characters briefly introduced in Episode 3 of Perfect Lives''. According to
Kyle Gann, the order of the tetralogy is (1) Improvement (representing Linda, one of the bank tellers), (2) el/Aficionado (representing Don Jr, i.e. "D, the Captain of the Football Team"), (3) Foreign Experiences (representing Junior Jr., Don and Linda's Son), and (4) Now Eleanor's Idea (representing Now Eleanor, another teller). According to Gann, the overall four-part structure of the cycle mirrors the four-movement symphonic form. These works are subtle in their narrative links to one another. The flow from
Perfect Lives leads to ''Now Eleanor's Idea'' (the opera, not the tetralogy), focusing on Eleanor and her journey from Midwestern-small-town bank teller to television news reporter to prophet for the Southwestern Hispanic low rider car culture. Don's story is chronicled in
Foreign Experiences. Don has moved to California with his family and becomes a professor. Unsatisfied with his existence, Don embarks on a mystical quest.
Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) focuses on Linda—here a metaphor for the Jews forced out of Spain in 1492—who is abandoned by her husband Don at a highway rest stop. Linda meets many characters in her travels, including a tap dancer who is a stand-in for
Giordano Bruno, and settles into a cosmopolitan existence with her son, Junior Jr. In a dream that echoes the uncertain journey of his father, Junior, Jr.'s opera,
el/Aficionado, is a post-mortem on a mysteriously botched exercise in espionage. Ashley says that each of these scenarios is in reality the simultaneous dream of the protagonist, happening at the focal moment of
Perfect Lives. Ashley, along with Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner,
Jacqueline Humbert, and Joan LaBarbara, performed the complete tetralogy in 1994 in Avignon and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Recordings of the operas have been released gradually, first with
Improvement in 1992, followed by
el/Aficionado in 1994,
Foreign Experiences in 2006, and ''Now Eleanor's Idea'' in 2007.
Additional allegory Ashley has ascribed various meanings to the individual elements of the trilogy. One layer of meaning is the journey, presumably of European-Americans, westward across America.
Atalanta represents those in the new world who are acutely aware of their tradition in the old world. This is represented in the lengthy stories on great figures of the past (the "Anecdotes", etc.).
Perfect Lives represents life in the Midwest, which Ashley was interested in "because it was flat". The stories have gotten shorter and are now just quaint colloquialisms and idioms (think of the string of phrases punctuated by "AND" in Episode 4). ''Now Eleanor's Idea
is about the journey beyond the familiar to the West Coast, presumably the end of the world, i.e. a certain civilization was established when European adventurers found themselves in California and figured they would likely never make it home. Rather than anecdotes and sayings, the story telling unit in these operas is much smaller, and hence the language is more abstract. Ashley says in the liner notes to Atalanta'' that the three works represent "architecture, agriculture, and genealogy", respectively. Ashley has also described the ''Now Eleanor's Idea
tetralogy as cataloging four American varieties of religion: Judaism in Improvement
, Pentecostal Evangelism in Foreign Experiences
, "corporate mysticism" in el/Aficionado
, and Roman Catholicism as derived from Spain in Now Eleanor's Idea''. == Automatic Writing ==