Joyce Castle never thought she had much in common with classic sculptures.

But in Jake Heggie’s mind, it was a perfect match.

When Castle, a voice professor at Kansas University and seasoned opera performer, asked Heggie to write a song cycle for her, one thought kept floating through Heggie’s mind.

“I said to Janice (Mayer, Castle’s manager), ‘She’s so statuesque,'” says Heggie, a well-known contemporary opera composer. “Then I started thinking about that word.”

The result was “Statuesque,” a five-song composition in which Castle takes on the personas of five famous sculptures of women.

She’ll premiere the piece at a recital Monday night at KU, accompanied by Heggie at piano and an instrumental ensemble of six KU professors.

As far as Castle and Heggie know, the piece is unique.

“Who wrote about sculptures of women?” Castle says. “I thought it was an interesting look and basis for the cycle, to get inside the personality of a sculpture of a woman.”

First commission

Castle got the idea to commission a work shortly after she came to teach at KU in 2001. She secured funding from the KU Center for Research for the project.

Castle, a native of Baldwin and a 1961 KU graduate, has spent 35 years as a professional opera singer, most of the time in New York and Paris.

“I’ve been in a lot of world premieres, New York premieres, North American premieres, premieres in France, but I’ve never had anything absolutely written for me,” she says. “I’ve had composers tell me they created roles with me in mind, but it hasn’t been in print. That felt very good to see that.”

She had never met Heggie – whose operas “Dead Man Walking” and “The End of the Affair” have been highly successful – before asking him to write a piece for her.

Fan from afar

But that didn’t mean Heggie, who lives in San Francisco, was unfamiliar with Castle.

“I’ve been such a fan of hers for as long as I can remember, through recordings and seeing her (on stage),” Heggie says. “I’d never met her when this came up, but I felt like I knew her character and definitely knew her voice – just sort of the mettle she’s made of.”

• Joyce Castle singing Leonard Bernstein’s “I Can Cook To”

And that, in part, was why he chose the statue theme. He also knew that the variety of parts she’s played in operas – 115 and counting – meant she could switch quickly between the “characters” of the different statues.

The five sculptures:

¢ “Reclining Figure” by Henry Moore.

¢ Head of a Woman” by Pablo Picasso.

¢ “The Divine Potter” by Hatshepsut.

¢ “Standing Figure” by Alberto Giacometti.

¢ “Winged Victory,” also by Giacometti.

Sculpting lyrics

Heggie called on lyricist, poet and composer Gene Scheer to write original words for “Statuesque,” which will take between 15 and 20 minutes to perform.

From left are Gene Scheer, Joyce Castle and Jake Heggie. The three have collaborated on the opera Statuesque, which will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Swarthout Recital Hall on Kansas University's campus.

Scheer gained fame earlier this year when his song “American Anthem” was sung at George W. Bush’s second inauguration. He also has an opera that opened Friday at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Scheer says sculpture and music share plenty in common.

“I think they’re both a blank canvas,” he says. “There’s the old expression of taking a stone and releasing the form in the stone. With music, that’s what you’re doing. You’re carving out of silence, music. There are definitely similarities.”

Scheer says each song takes on the personality of the sculpture it’s written about. For instance, the Moore song is sultry, the Giacometti song is dramatic, and the “Winged Victory” song is humorous.

“I think they are individual messages, five distinct musical pieces, linked by Jake and I using our imaginations of what might be going through the minds of the women,” Scheer says.

‘Eccentric’ performer

Castle says she can infuse her own character into the works.

“Yes, it’s the words of the Egyptian queen or whichever sculpture we’re talking about, but it’s written for me, too,” Castle says. “(Heggie) wanted me to put my own personality into it. So it’s Joyce inside the Egyptian queen, or Joyce inside ‘Winged Victory.'”

After Monday’s premiere, Castle would like to take “Statuesque” on the road. She’s hoping museums would be interested in booking concerts that include the song cycle.

Heggie says Castle’s personality ought to shine through enough to make “Statuesque” popular.

“Joyce has a great sense of humor,” Heggie says. “She has tremendous depth and is an emotional person, but she has this wonderfully insane persona as well. She’s sort of an eccentric, and the world needs more eccentrics. They make the world a better place by being brave.”