By Michael Hibblen
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-915195.mp3
Little Rock, AR – The opera is called Billy Blythe, which is the name Bill Clinton went by until he adopted his stepfather's last name in high school. It's the brainchild of 30-year-old Bonnie Montgomery
"I was reading Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life and in the first few chapters he writes about his childhood and his youth. And just the way he wrote about that was very evocative for me," Montomery said. "I could see it on a stage in an operatic form."
It's still a work in progress... with Montgomery here in the role of Clinton's mother Virginia in a scene with her14-year-old son.
"It's sort of these mythical characters in his childhood, very colorful characters and the flavor of the South and in particular Hot Springs, just the way he describes his family and his community. All of the elements of opera are in his life I think."
Montgomery is a native of Searcy, who graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, then attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Conservatory of Music. To put the opera together, she enlisted the help of Britt Barber, a former classmate at Ouachita who lives in Atlanta.
"I took the idea and I ran with it and went home and wrote the first scene and told her what I imagined it would sound like and basically she put it down on the piano," Barber explains.
The play is set in Hot Springs in 1959 and includes Clinton's rather volatile home life with a fun-loving mother and a physically abusive stepfather. Barber says it was a pivotal time for the future president.
"I'm hoping to portray Clinton becoming or realizing what he's capable of. Who he is and who he can become at that very sensitive age in a person's life," Barber says.
"We're painting a snapshot of a day in the life of Billy Blythe. It opens at dawn and it closes at night. And we have compressed events that happened over several years of his life into this one day in the most realistic way that we can," Montgomery says.
But anything involving the former president faces scrutiny and can quickly become the fodder for late night comics. After a bit of national attention on the opera, this was Jimmy Fallon last week on NBC "Check this out a new opera based on the life of Bill Clinton is opening this fall in Arkansas. You're making his own jokes, already..."
"You mention Arkansas and you get a laugh, same thing with Clinton sometimes. But I just want it to be an uplifting and inspirational and positive story for Arkansas heritage, the Clinton legacy and opera too," Montgomery explains.
The public will likely get its first taste of the opera in September, when Montgomery is planning to perform a couple of scenes before a small audience. Then she hopes to bring it to a more formal venue.
"We're still in the final stages of composing it. 99-percent of the composition is done. Then it needs to get on paper in a way that's legible for singers and musicians. Then we need to start talking about production and rounding up support," Montgomery said.