Darkling a N N a Rabinowitz Produced by American Opera Projects Spoken Voices Directed by Matt Gray, and Engineered by Tom Hamilton

S t e f a n Weisman Darkling A n n a Rabinowitz Produced by American Opera Projects Spoken voices directed by Matt Gray, and engineered by Tom Hamilton

Spoken voice sequences created by Tom Darkling Hamilton, Matt Gray, Anna Rabinowitz, and Stefan Weisman Music by Stefan Weisman Libretto by Anna Rabinowitz Spoken voices recorded September 22–24, 2010 and February 25, 2011 at Maeve Höglund, Soprano Merlin Studios, New York, New York Hai-Ting Chinn, Mezzo-Soprano Jon Garrison, Tenor CD design by Reed Seifer Mark Uhlemann, Bass-Baritone Photographs from the collection of Anna Rabinowitz Tom Chiu, Violin 1 Contemporary image, front, by Julien Haler Philip Payton, Violin 2 Typesetting by Mick Wieland Kenji Bunch, Viola Raman Ramakrishnan, Cello The creation of Darkling is a story of Brian DeMaris, Conductor transformations. It is a story that maps the Spoken Voices: Adam Belvo, David S. trajectory of bits of memorabilia found in Cohen, Emily Coffin, Elzbieta Czyzewska, a shoe box to publication of a book-length Edward Furs, Roger Grunwald, Denice poem to production of a multi-media Kondik, Eva Vidavska Kumar, Carol experimental opera performed in fully Monda, Mick O’Brien, Patrick Porter, staged and concert versions to its current Karen Sternberg, Asher Suss, Mark incarnation as a CD. Uhlemann, Hollis Witherspoon, Perri Yaniv Indeed, Darkling owes its genesis to fragments—fragments of memory, fading Music produced and engineered by photographs and yellowing letters saved Judith Sherman with Jeanne Velonis, in a shoe box—that demanded presence of engineering and editing assistant absence, recuperation (however limited) of life. The faceless, mainly nameless voices Mixed by Judith Sherman and of Darkling emerge from a world lost to us: Stefan Weisman that of Eastern European Jewry destroyed in the Holocaust. Yet these voices Music recorded October 26–28, 2010, resonate powerfully with our own as we at the American Academy of Arts navigate a world in which cataclysm, and Letters, New York, New York genocide, war, and unrest inform the 2 almost constant uncertainties of being. dream, I hope, will come true: my personal Darkling spans the period between dream that Darkling will now live its multi- the two World Wars, interweaving the dimensional life in our vast global world. phenomenal and emotional lives of its Stefan Weisman has composed music of characters with the catastrophic events so broad and interesting a palette that it of history. Darkling is not plot driven. creates a deeply moving whole out of tears Nevertheless, though the focus is and wit, dance and lament, life and death, placed on the emotions, the terrors, the and a team of exceptional performers incalculable losses of those years, the and production people have dedicated unprecedented narrative of the twentieth themselves, with a fervor Thomas Hardy century, particularly the Holocaust, could not muster in his poem, to creating remains an ineradicable presence. a new form of opera for the twenty-first Disembodied voices, spoken and sung, century—a form that shuns boundaries vestigial utterances, shifting grounds, and is as abundant as life itself. I thank indeterminate events, ruptured histories. all my outstanding collaborators for How does one make a poem from so demonstrating, by way of this CD of much that is broken, unraveled, erased? Darkling, what is possible for music and Somehow, using Thomas Hardy’s “The poetry now and in the years to come. Darkling Thrush,” as my armature to hold —Anna Rabinowitz the scraps together, I made a book-length acrostic poem. It seemed a miracle. It was even more of a miracle when When American Opera Projects first American Opera Projects engaged Michael approached me about Darkling, the Comlish to direct and Stefan Weisman to role that I would play in the piece was write the music for Darkling, the opera. not entirely clear. The director, Michael How does one embody the disembodied Comlish, was overseeing the opera’s while guiding opera theater audiences over development, and his initial idea was the uncharted, elusive terrains of memory that I would compose only some of the and loss? Indeed, Michael and Stefan and music, and then would supervise other a brilliant team of performers and technical composers who would complete the opera wizards accomplished just that. They made in a patchwork fashion. This concept of a a second, more remarkable, miracle—a multiplicity of compositional voices was poet’s dream come true. I cannot say it meant to create a sense of fragmentation was my dream, because I never did, in fact, akin to the style of the libretto. I resisted, dream such a work could derive from my believing that such an approach would, book. Yet, it did. And it was acclaimed by in fact, create a disjointed work lacking the critics and audiences! a unified musical direction. I argued With the release of this CD, another that I should write all of the music. After 3 convincing all involved that this was how song as the foundation for my personal we should proceed, I felt a sudden panic, reinvention of the acrostic form. I split his wondering how I would actually be able song into sections, and mapped those to complete the opera, especially since sections out across the libretto’s scenes. its premiere was scheduled to take place Then, as I began to write music for each in a matter of months. Anna Rabinowitz’s scene, I examined those particular mea- poetry was decidedly beautiful but sures and used some elements of them— complex. I read her book-length poem melodic fragments, harmonic progressions, dozens of times, taking careful notes with or textural ideas—as I composed. each reading, and feeling more and more Although Lee’s song has not been unsure about how to find a way to match included in recent productions of Darkling music with her intricate language. At one point I even considered withdrawing from and is not on this CD, I owe a great debt the commission, but luckily was urged by to him and to his music. (Please note that Paul Lansky, with whom I was studying the acrostic does not appear in the libretto composition at Princeton at the time, to accompanying this CD release because the continue. His simple advice: you have poetry has been edited and it is not laid out nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain. in its original form.) So, I committed myself to the project. When I first met Anna Rabinowitz, I told Michael Comlish and I began to meet her I expected to have many questions regularly, and we scrutinized the libretto about her poetry as I began to compose, scene by scene. I am very grateful to him and that I would need to consult with her for advising and guiding me as I composed frequently. Amazingly, I never needed to Darkling’s music. do so. As soon as my work began, some- As I became more familiar with the thing remarkable happened . . . my initial poetry, I was particularly intrigued by its feelings of doubt and apprehension were overarching structure. Anna’s poem is an swept away. I discovered that underneath acrostic based on Thomas Hardy’s “The the poem’s layered complexity was a deep Darkling Thrush,” so when reading down emotionality into which I was able to tap, the left hand margin, one finds Hardy’s poem spelled out, letter by letter. I wanted and in this way the poetry came into vivid to find a way to replicate the acrostic form focus for me. Ultimately, my goal was to in my musical process. Before I had even use music to make those underlying emo- begun work on the opera, composer Lee tions instantly clear and direct, so that Hoiby had already been commissioned by audiences would be able to connect to AOP to set Hardy’s poem to music, a nod and understand the heartrending story and to the opera’s initial concept, mentioned ideas I found in Darkling’s poetry. above. I decided that I would use Lee’s —Stefan Weisman 4 SETTING GROOM (spoken voice): Husband of the bride. He waits in Poland for documents The present, Anna’s mind. Anna, a poet, to arrive from the bride that will permit has discovered a box containing old fam- him to join her in America. ily photographs and letters in her late father’s closet. She opens the box. NAZI ANNOUNCER (spoken voice)

CHARACTERS MR. BAD LUCK (spoken voice): A malevo- lent spirit. ANNA (soprano, spoken voice): A poet in extremis. Several distinct voices enact MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES: Various men her roles as narrator, commentator and and women, often in quick succession, meditator—as a young woman, a woman and in groups of different sizes. Unknown, nameless. in middle age, and a woman in late life. Her family has been murdered in the Holocaust decades earlier. Entrapped by DISC ONE her mainly undocumented, fragmented knowledge of their lives and the lives of 1 • PROLOGUE their friends during the period between the two World Wars in Poland, Anna rum- 2 • INSIDE: A STORY mages through scraps of memory, old letters, and photographs in an attempt ANNA to piece together her legacy of shards. Inside: a story — The voices speak in different registers and tones, representing the multivalent inventories, incidents — aspects of Anna’s state of mind and of her pleading to be flossed quest to make the absent present. from the teeth of silence — leaching congealed vowels — lately of / longing for BRIDE (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and words — spoken voice): Mother of Anna, hastily married and conflicted, who emigrates this is this — from Poland to America. that is that —

PATRIARCH (tenor): Father of the bride. as in first annunciations as in debuts for old roles JEWISH MAN (bass-baritone): A man who as if to atone: represents the victims of the Nazis. Yes, I love you — 5 Namers courting Preludes drifting sands, as in dawnings, fated to root heels, toes Distances into dunes rampant with as in prayers consonants of unreachable destinies, destinations ensnared at the main gate — where nothing feels and now — new but an aching and now — need to shout out. Oh god — they’re dead. Again and again the narrative howls for words, 3 • WHY DOES IT END LIKE THIS

circling, leaping into / out of / ANNA shade, Why does it end like this? but it makes No word, no only wrong turns. hand across the lines, no bridge or rope — How can it say the right thing? MALE VOICE Shall it pledge never to do that Only a boulder again, to be good next time? at the eleventh hour — a daughter / parents — blooms at the edge ANNA of a small scream — (Which is forever)

In the beginning is the end — MALE VOICE words and more buds — Rolling uphill — fingers knotted / throats choked — Entropies, upstretched vacancies, ANNA too soon for / Silted lakes of memory — in the aftermath of / out-of-focus yesterdays being — pile up aimlessly. The troved treasure of Love me histories closed, Touch me reduced to an index Make use of me — of footnotes bereft of a text. 6 MALE VOICE MALE VOICE A story afloat with the last Tangled bindweed in threads of time — the debris of one scene in the plot — what has occurred. Marks are made. They don’t erase. ANNA Acres of fact occupy the ANNA no-man’s land There — over there — I had hoped to explore. beside the iron fence, each cell of her flesh MALE VOICE a clear crystal Grass is not greener there, waiting for a cut — but it grows like crazy. which could be another facet of And it’s so hard to find the stepping stones. experience in the life ahead —

ANNA MALE VOICE Elsewhere is a long way away. Or a crack — Dust crackles there and I a flaw in what comes next — believe the fountains have gone underground. ANNA Or to cut out MALE VOICE Late resorts among frayed echoes, MALE VOICE dissolves out of shadowrange — Though she doesn’t know yet ANNA about exits — I must find a path in this stupefying darkness MEZZO-SOPRANO that insists we knuckle down Holding on, holding on— to its relentless advances — (repeated throughout) ANNA ANNA As if a pen’s breathprint There’s been a slippage, clears heartlands where the slow ricochet into blear, nearly nulled rise like saplings 7 MALE VOICE ANNA from the austere from womb of clouds drive of an unsummoned earth . . . to unhatched sea.

ANNA 4 • HEEL AND TOE As if all this thinking restores the dead, undead, ANNA at last replanted in the foreground, Heel and toe. Is that the way back to raw footage? MALE VOICE Awkward states of being stolid, multi-trunked oaks stumble through leafing into the fraught season, scattershot clips —

ANNA Documents of was appear as newborn in a green time . . . shards back then when seasonal myths MALE VOICE made offerings on location, Meaning no longer in memoriam known quantities hoping to in this city of black avenues — make sense of the plot. ANNA Understand: the bric a brac Sirens in the clouds, of opening scenes keeps buildings so tall and narrow going nowhere: MALE VOICE that passing through is subject BRIDE to foreclosure . . . She: crouched at the sewing machine, ANNA hands guiding a seam’s Newsreels: how I searched lean course . . . for a face, a name to moor in my here and now — huddled as if trapped in the down of the sofa . . . Here and now, Then and gone — anchored side-saddle on the kitchen chair . . . MALE VOICE This urgency to mark up emptiness stooped at the stove, cupping from street to highway, scum from the broth. 8 GROOM ANNA He: Just once . . . no! asleep, feet reeking like decayed Let’s make it forever . . . potatoes in the corner store . . . I’ve got to replay it . . . Each day the basement bakeshop . . . right or wrong, his hollow chest . . . I’ve got to get it real again his water eyes less full, more pale . . . in this now-or-never situation —

ANNA FEMALE VOICE Is this the place for a cut? All the exposures, encounters, accountings, the episodes on film . . . GROOM No, not yet. Other frames: BRIDE Grapes ferment on the fire escape, Silent performances, seeded rolls rise in the coal-fired round as her face oven, hot tea cools in the glass. as it zooms into focus, He has worked hard, all his life worked so hard there’s been no GROOM opportunity for an inventory, full as the moon he traced no chance to be . . . to be . . . on the rug with a cane. Understand: there’s just enough to put supper on the table, no surplus 5 • THREE WEEKS EARLIER for Sunday dinner at the Famous. TENOR ANNA Three weeks earlier Economy tugs at the screen . . . they’d met and married — remnants are cautiously cut, Then she fled — then stitched into shirts and skirts. How am I doing? Any progress? MEZZO-SOPRANO Sailed off in a huff MALE VOICES Or does this proceed in an CHORUS ongoing endured as beginnings — and winds whinnied dressed in leitmotifs through the ship — of a vanished past — and star-entangled whys filtered through lenses pocked the fictive darkly . . . barely at all? fields of sea. 9 TENOR SOPRANO Did she lament as she Passage to America. lay on her berth at the bottom MEZZO-SOPRANO of the boat? Was it for that? Or not to be alone? MEZZO-SOPRANO Would she explain ANNA afterwards? Was it for that? Or not to be alone for even a minute more? ANNA Or to live in a six-story walk-up, She as She was, to earn a hand-to-mouth wage, “I as I am,” to bury the corpse of their dreams, racing to become always to feel alien, native to herself. one foot here, the other in the old country? TENOR Tasting the difference, Because he had jibed, each day starved for the “Your face folds up, leftover plate, but unable to eat dissolves, purses, — trapped in a cage of whose making? puckers, crimps — two children reaching for bread . . . like a dry sponge.” So how does she enter her life? What wings will jab MEZZO-SOPRANO and TENOR sharp shoals of light? Why? Why had they married? Whose feathers flare the sun?

6 • WEDDING DANCE TENOR Alone at night 7 • SWARMS OF BEES she will not, cannot sing. ANNA Swarms of bees cruised SOPRANO and BASS-BARITONE the canopy above their Every day heads. Three fiddles whined under a gibbous moon, SOPRANO a maverick sea, harbors He waits for a letter. kicking up their feet, roared like a cannon down SOPRANO and BASS-BARITONE the corridors of their bones. Every day 10 BASS-BARITONE 8 • THEY WILL NOT ASK She fails to write. MEZZO-SOPRANO SOPRANO They will not ask me why I was not Sarah; My dearest, they will not hunger for Leah or Rachel, but oh, the endless speculation TENOR about why I walked cautiously He scrawls, inside your footprints, why each day a different me strode GROOM into my name Remember our walks — struggling to claim herself . . . in the woods, What made me cower before your strides? evenings we bathed in the cold stream . . . BASS-BARITONE how we shivered . . . Say it wasn’t so — say it wasn’t so — BASS-BARITONE MEZZO-SOPRANO She replies, Chains break at the gaping link — BRIDE Dear husband, CHORUS (repeated throughout) Toll . . . Toll . . . I am not beautiful, my eyes Tuck into my cheeks. I will not bleed when you speak, MEZZO-SOPRANO I am neither opus nor brief text, Orphaned, unfledged, unable I am not scarf around your neck, to read the glyphed walls, Nor beard at your chin. rent by the lateness of answers I am me approaching my throat . . . I am me — the one I’m ANNA expected Unable to say . . . entrusted Year after year, enabled to be thirsting to say . . .

GROOM MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES And who is that? Who is that? Enough! 11 9 • HAMBURG, 1928 MALE VOICE Before Zyklon B, before FEMALE VOICE Hiroshima. In the year of Hamburg, 1928. teleprint and teletype, Romberg’s “New Moon” and SOPRANO Lang’s “Woman on the Moon,” “My ship sets sail,” she writes. “Strange Interlude,” penicillin and “Button Up Your Overcoat” MALE VOICE Into marmoreal syllables — SOPRANO Still, we have good times. ANNA Joseph, the cantor, Veiny silence of anotherworld, presses two fingers anothertime — to the base of his throat and unfurls MALE VOICE a skein of falsetto notes. Before technicolor and TV, Before goosesteps ANNA mated with Heil, Trills no longer sound, Before numbered forearms a ship no longer shape, and yellow stars, scenes no longer playable, Before “Whistle While You Work” and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” Yet, had I lived this — even then — SOPRANO everything would be missing — Hundreds in steerage even so — cram the decks. I sleep on foul-smelling straw stalking the unpossessable, rammed into filthy entreating the impalpable — ticking, eat gruel I would forage through Nothingness — and stale bread; every night I toss in case — on my cot, wrestling in case — with god-knows-what, the Atlantic clubbed Even then — by rapid yaws and rolls by figment or fragment — to anotherlife, anotherchance. it was there 12 SOPRANO memory-shucked His songs are echoes husks of history: of an echo of an echo . . . I listen and I long for GROOM what will happen next. His bed in Warsaw: a pine plank between two wooden chairs . . . MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES his workday: eighteen hours SS Hamburg to learn a trade: cause, effect, eggs beaten pale, inspections for lice — lumps of dough rising last looks — to buns and rolls . . . old valises splintered apart, In a single hope . . . mica-dazzled, dreamed-up boulevards ANNA of a golden land — Name me Gatherer of Seed. which is America — Daylight, twilight, nightlight, which is where history shoulders everything — they are heading — and nothing, Heir to its own disillusion ANNA (dissolution) Which is where — offering up winters she will wear herself out — as they may not have been — Doing, undoing — Insatiable accruals of query and claim: Antonyms, as in that which SOPRANO jars (bars) memory, A bird of the air Synonyms: as in renegade clues to carry the voice and that which has CHORUS wings to tell the matter — Believe me

10 • HALF-TONES IN HALF-DARK MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES “Help lies in us alone . . . GROOM unity increases power . . . Half-tones in half-dark . . . under a single flag . . .”

ANNA ANNA Tentative gropings I have seen them devoured, for kernels of was . . . heard them silenced 13 by their own entropies . . . I must take note minuends from which of their pleas everything is subtracted — to be gathered:

CHORUS First thoughts Believe me seeking a second life, ANNA Long-distance flyers History can be neither ready to live bought, nor stolen, nor faked, a double death . . . neither borrowed nor slaked —

GROOM 12 • WHEELING, WRITHING Adream on his chairs, he is lonely and prays for her letter. ANNA Wheeling, writhing — CHORUS lunatic particulars condemned to event Believe me And evidence / layer upon layer / GROOM impossible to view And he dreams, and he waits, through the swollen fog — and he breaks bread in a two-room flat Signs later to be deplored / repudiated / where eight of them sleep. stashed away in a corner of the closet . . .

CHORUS GROOM Believe me, believe me Her father: writing from a deep ANNA cave of pain: Believe me, TENOR This must be told Why, why did you run off without saying because it is foreign to me. goodbye, so soon after the wedding, 11 • EVERYWHERE without saying goodbye? FEATHERS LEAP ANNA SOPRANO A morning her brother pleads, Everywhere feathers leap from the dust and, YOUNG MALE VOICE powerless before them Take me along. 14 GROOM 13 • IT IS SEPTEMBER An afternoon his cousin flees Warsaw for the woods, MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES The night they fathom unthinkable It is September: sayings said, a day bruised by heat, a continent reddened with forebodings MALE VOICE of shorn head and torch, Hier ist kein Warums blued with futures doomed to die in frozen squares, gas-filled halls, GROOM foodless dorms — Undoable doings done — Tell me: Who will lean over frayed books MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES to chant unanswerable prayers — Skittering willy-nilly over the skin of the Vistula / charging at them / Who will restrain an uncle’s forcing them to their knees hand before he punctures an eardrum to as the not-yet-disclosed beat the draft — claws at the shore: and more — Who will name a uniformed lover luring her to Buenos Aires, Who foresees diabolic one whose photo brittled in the drawer — epilogues in the crowded square, nearly her mate, nearly the agent of my surrender when the notice never having been — to round up Jews is nailed to the doors, Who will remember what to forget — howls curdling in throats Who will repair warped porches, as the nominal becomes fact chipped windows, stir up Leninist-Trotskyite tempests and tanks memorize the dirt roads, over schnapps in the inn — quote houses, end-stop fields Who will hang on for dear life despite MALE VOICE potatoes going bad and Poles Drive tire-tread finales into their eyes — going mad with rabid rancors —

ANNA FEMALE VOICE After all / no one knew / Who will acknowledge things no one believed / it could be like that — of darkness as their own? 15 MALE VOICE MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES Send my regards to Khane Chosen — and write me from the ship — May you live and be well, FEMALE VOICE May you be blessed Victims of openings with good health, forever closed, redactors May you have a safe trip, of the latest version of How To: May you prosper in New York, How to be trapped May you eat chicken and beef three times in the week, How to be underlined for extermination May you light candles each Friday, May you find an hour to read a good book, DISC TWO May you earn enough for yourselves and my grandchildren — yet not fail to spare 1 • THERE’S BEEN A SLIPPAGE something for us — Please God — CHORUS the ones you have left — There’s been a slippage, a slow ricochet into blear, ANNA as if history refuses The ones who will to reveal its presence become history without medical in the scheme, data or antecedent, losing its eternal being in that verge birth dates, faces, – being or pending – anecdotes of what they ate, how they played — whether they 2 • AMONG REMAINS fought or fantasized, defecated or prayed ANNA as their lungs sponged gas — Among remains — whether their hearts were punctured or the story builds — engorged, another and another — if their shrieks then another — rang in the crowded silence, as if from a safekeeping — if their moans crashed against mute walls MALE VOICE of ill-humored rooms — This mute parade of faces — Unarmed, Unblessed — tongues frozen in a dead of sepia — 16 ANNA — remember me — Profiles, three-quarters, — remember I wished you the best — head-ons of unpowderable nose, from me, Isaac, unshavable chin — from me, Helena, Regina, Frank, from me MALE VOICE and me, Without name — Ostroleka, 1936 — and me . . . ANNA Without context — 3 • AS IF A PEN’S BREATHPRINT permanently impermanent, imperfectly true — CHORUS As if a pen’s breathprint MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES clears heartlands This one endlessly fixed on possibility, where the nearly a single ringlet at her brow: nulled rise like — zum Abiken Andenken saplings from the Ostroleka, 1918 austere drive of an — remember me forever — unsummoned earth. and this one — How I searched for no more than twenty, a face, a name perched on a ladder to moor in my in an orchard here and now, pretending to pick apples: here and now, — I give you my photo, remember me — then and gone. now in taffeta, This urgency to mark turning toward the view: up emptiness from street woods-that-were to highway, from or may-have-been — womb of clouds — life is a battle, so fight to win — to unhatched sea. — my photo in remembrance — — for the cousin I love, 1922 — 4 • IS IT RE-ENTRY THEY ARE AFTER and another, and another: MALE VOICE — Our friend, we give you this photo — Is it re-entry they are after, — remember us forever, Warsaw, 1932 — Is it markers for their graves, 17 Is it to remind us they burned MALE VOICE with the best possible light, A couple lean against a plant stand,

FEMALE VOICE ANNA Or is it to urge us A child and a balustrade — to complete them — A man in high collar and striped tie — as they were . . . in great strong masses . . . MALE VOICE A woman with blond hair buttons are lost, but cascading to her waist — clothing remains; Beside a jagged shore: — clothing is lost but Once I had a love and I was loved . . . figures remain; figures are lost, but ANNA shadows remain; My mother in a deckchair — shadows are lost wearing a fur-trimmed coat but the picture remains, and a dark cloche edged with contrasting trim MALE VOICE in a scallop motif — And that, night cannot efface . . . After their fact, ANNA and MALE VOICE after their thought, But I’ve been left here after their flesh — abandoned and alone —

MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES ANNA Fotographja Masha peeking at me Rafael, Lomza — Foto between hand-colored fronds Bekker, Brok — of a potted palm — Cartolina Postale — Postkarte — Briefkart — Tarjeta Postal — A cottage in a distance Carte Postale — Pocztówka — of clouds nearing

ANNA Naomi in a lace dress — A little boy in a sailor suit Moishe in a homburg — clutches a ball — Hersh in uniform — A young girl smells a rose — Two women rest heads in their hands, MALE VOICE A third holds a drawstring purse — Group photo: 18 FEMALE VOICE I’ve made a mistake, and you, Friends — they must be friends — what a price you’ve paid! twenty-four young men and women, ANNA arms entwined — And for what — for what? three rows of eight — most likely on an outing — MALE VOICE Love? Was it for love? Pity? Wanderlust? in the mountains — Was it exhaustion from sparring just having finished with dreams hitched to their hides? or just before singing their songs — CHORUS America 5 • THIS PAPER LIFE 6 • YOU HAVEN’T BEEN BRIDE TO AMERICA This paper life! How I hate this paper life! FEMALE VOICE You haven’t been to America! FEMALE VOICE You haven’t slaved in a hat Espoused: a woman: 26, factory on Broome Street! blue eyes too deep What can you know? in her cheeks, a.k.a. farkrimpt, tense BRIDE — sans joie Din, filth, choke of cloth, a man: 26, needle prick at her skin, treadle beat at her feet, gray eyeflame in his face, a.k.a. mazik — FEMALE VOICE mischiefmaker Three thicknesses of calico coated with shellac . . . GROOM Espoused: BRIDE By her to lament mirrors, We don’t know each other!

BRIDE FEMALE VOICE By him to be illegible . . . Hot irons, brims pried 19 down over crowns, BRIDE pulled, dressed, polished, He loves my plumage, lined with China silk . . . My scent in green air, my habit of riding on one leg . . . MR. BAD LUCK America in exchange for your life? We’ll be a threesome when you come because I glut ANNA vacancies with his name. Mr. Bad Luck speeds ahead of her: He’ll be our staff, BRIDE our deliverance, My ship took ten days, his took three. our educator par excellence . . .

ANNA We don’t know each other! Mr. Bad Luck thumbs his nose at her: GROOM MR. BAD LUCK We don’t know each other! What? You want a job that pays more? FEMALE VOICE ANNA Rozowka, hele sitka, Mr. Bad Luck dares her to fly: tunkele sitka, bekenbroyt — gray as bleached rye, MR. BAD LUCK black as burnt corn — Pack up, BRIDE ANNA Without him I am lonely, forlorn . . . He says, MALE VOICE MR. BAD LUCK Hero without a script for romance, Run to Poland, Chicago, New York — Heroine with lines Wherever you like. enjambed despite I’ll find you anywhere. birds perched on her tongue. I’ll get there first. Agreed: BRIDE To be coupled until death: We don’t know each other! to be angry, We’ve only just met! to be loyal,

ANNA ANNA Mr. Bad Luck a brick at her side: Never to know why. 20 MALE VOICE ANNA If we suffer for our sins, Backstage, futile attempts forgive us; eavesdrop on precise cues if we suffer for the sins for dialogue. of others, pity the innocent — Alibis bleach out; no prompter can be found. FEMALE VOICE MALE VOICE Their silences — nightmarish — The purpose of birth is learning ablaze with questions driven from the front lines — FEMALE VOICE embattled by fusillades of sound: Retorts drift through streams of ink:

BRIDE GROOM Why must I lie beneath you? When I get to America we will be together . . . Why must I bear your child? We will sign our names in a better light . . . Do I need a new coat for New York? ANNA Shall I get Elke to make us a down quilt? Unspeakable syllables leaked from her pen . . . BRIDE — gray twill, double-breasted, MALE VOICE with a black velvet The purpose of marriage is union collar, perhaps? — or silk? FEMALE VOICE GROOM Language totters Should she embroider from one tongue to another: our pillowcases How many times will her heart stop? or trim them with braid?

MALE VOICE ANNA And what about him? Night swallows Does anyone hear? scraps of explanation — Outwitted, the plot retreats, GROOM taking no bows, Don’t claim marriage is bankrupt . . . gnashing its teeth — Don’t say you made a mistake . . . implacable, imponderable, imperfectly played MALE VOICE — in medias res, inter alia — The purpose of union is birth — in the middle of / between everything — 21 FEMALE VOICE in your ear — Curtained down . . . Latebloomers rally to light —

MALE VOICE Pent up in my bones The purpose of learning is not to know — I will filigree air — 7 • OWNED BY A HEAT like a burning fire — roaring in flight — MALE VOICE Come quickly from the ship — Owned by a heat: I will co-sign your flank, BRIDE I will ghostwrite your loins — — There is something My heart, lynx-eye of hope — in my heart like a burning fire — shut up in my bones Bring a silk blouse —Hear me, hear me — blazing with rose, hear me a wool scarf lusty with green. joyless in these loitering hours — I am weary with holding it in Bring silver spoons, — and I cannot — a down quilt, If my fever-tongue knew a photo of our house how to speak — — I have fevered for thee on Orchard Street, There is something in my heart — on Delancey, on Grand — and I am weary with Bring opera glasses, a coral brooch, holding it in — and I cannot — buttons wild with bone — this burning churning — Engulfed by this heat — swollen Yes — oh, yes — — flaring — this waiting thickened, stream unto me, into me — brambled with heat — I will marcel my hair, rouge my cheeks, Do you hear me moisten my lips— — Locked up in my bones —

I will put a new song — will you know me — in my mouth — shall I row to you, I will plant high trees flame to your boat — 22 MALE VOICE Dear God, Dear God Strangers, because one couple, Langer tzeit nisht zehn safe in America Long time no see chose to forget, MALE VOICE or not to remember We will never see each other again. they had survived. MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES 8 • A SINGLE HOPE In the dead desire of then and there TENOR A single hope: you will come In the unclaimed country A single fear: you will not strewn with pasts Night favors the face of the deep, And I am afflicted Tragedies commuted from with this spectacular need first stops to dead ends

God be with you, son-in-law, Trains profane being in this hour . . . without to being erased Each morning braced Barbers strop razors, for heavy squalls . . . the honed tracks agleam A speed of threat across the waters . . . Erasures of hair, Doves know no rest the surfeit of flesh for the soles of their feet. Dossiers begging You must come! escape to the grave

I will not let thee sail, except I bless thee: Today father died Honor thy father that thy days of these privations may be long. Particles of data unable to testify 9 • MY CHILD, THERE ARE NO BUSES How can we tell of our FEMALE VOICE sufferings, our wanderings My child, there are no buses, no carriages from Brok to Ostroleka, Mossy maneuvers — but you must find a way, scout a way . . . Half-taught, half-lived lives 23 Worms fuss with our bones, 11 • SO LITTLE CAUSE Crows yearn for our eyes ANNA Embers now thirsting for flame So little cause, and illusions of meaning withdraw. MALE VOICE Oh little cause of timetorn There are no Jews left in Brok . . . torntime motes in time, little can they know 10 • SALVAGE OF COATS trapped in that time, in that abyss of history BASS-BARITONE when wordclaws Salvage of coats — tear at their throats. This coat which is nightmare This mantle MALE VOICE This shroud Crowds — Moishe the Barber, This coat which is map resident now of silence, of a coat inflicted on them apostle of naked chins, Coat of ruins shaves the peasant faces, Coat of fear unbeards the Jews Nomad coat unable to shield — who have strayed — Simon the Merchant I am cold in this coat mans three carts at once — This tattered need without lining, This flag of flight Edifice of fur hat, This ravel of pain hill of velvet frock, Wrapper of traces pyramid of boot, in which shoulders slope I am cold in this coat ANNA And in New York “Little Flower” Riptide of sleeves reads the comics, Maelstrom of cuffs swings a baton at Carnegie Hall, Landscape unhemmed on his motorcycle rushes Makeshift hiding place as if tomorrow can be stalled, Running place rushes in his sidecar Stitched and unstitched to the latest fire, Abandoned by thread has faith that evil, 24 FEMALE VOICE MALE VOICE Culpabilities are temporary This winterdark of dregs . . . alliances with darkness, NAZI ANNOUNCER MALE VOICE Official announcement: antipathies slated to be we proudly report a new erased from the moral terrain, technique for site-specific articulation of negative space: ANNA a groundbreaking framework for transforming rounds the corner on the a visual field of breathing glittering, unstoppable wheels referents into a space of better days metamorphosed to ambiguity on a roll, on the march, by a seething landscape speeding through expectant, laced with nostalgia. hope-doused streets — Under a capacious sun, MALE VOICE at approximately 9 a.m., Little causes: skullcaps, we reclaimed the paved sideburns, leaning square— cottages on chicken legs — Corners where Ostrov, Worynska, Sporynska and FEMALE VOICES Ulinits intersect. If we forget — lest we forget — Lest we forget . . . Hundreds of Jews were laid face up in a grid-like pattern. enticements to the eye MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES were provided by wobbly Oh scattered sheep reliefs of bodies on cobbled stone, exiled to lost roads, while demeanors nuggets of piety cling of kinesthesia to their coats, were achieved by subtle heaves of supine on their brows they glow — form, the force of which we labored Oh guardian light — on the floor to contain with bayonets a child writhes, and rifle butts lest the undulating the rebbe’s in the stove — abstraction lapse into chaos, Slumber, landsleit doze — lest this never to be written page of honor long live this drone, in our history be marred. 25 Troubled by such unchecked the story of their liberation from slavery in Egypt. textures, our heroic men, They praise and thank God for all the blessings He decent and hard throughout, bestowed upon them during the time of the Exodus. chiseled the hobnails of their boots With each expression of gratitude, the Seder par- into the assemblage, and when, ticipants sing out: “It would have been enough.” from time to time, the design, Here, God is held accountable for tortures and as artistic creations are often abominations inflicted on Jews during the Holocaust. known to do, After each horrible example, the performers say, “Dayenu;” it would have been enough. declared itself, emitting tremors, shivers, sometimes garbled, gutteral ANNA sound, our expert craftsmen, Whittled regions, watery seasons, with iron bars and wooden planks, with A landscape never to be read diagonal sweeps of gestural swagger or rewritten orchestrated across the surface, restored order, rendering blood as rivulets MALE VOICE and thin washes, urine as cursive jottings, mucus If they had hammered and excrement as heavily nails to our gums encrusted impastoes and not cut off our hands and edgy spills resistant to closure. noteworthy, too, was our palette: VOICES broad fillips of color: Dayenu celadon to amber to ruby and blue. FEMALE VOICE Domination Theory, Pure Imagery, If they had sliced off and Plastic Arts at last united in a grand Moishe’s lids and not graffiti of spectatorship forced Channah to eat them and alienation defying depletion. VOICES Listeners: imagine where such Dayenu innovation may take us! ANNA 12 • DAYENU Canvas of shadow Dayenu means “it would have been enough,” i.e., “we would have been satisfied.” It is from the Passover palette of dung Haggadah, sung at the Seder, when Jews recount erosrattle in their groins 26 FEMALE VOICE FEMALE VOICES If they had shorn arms As ifs begat and from the children begat and begat and not choked the wind with their necks ANNA And no voice and VOICES charred leaves ungathered Dayenu Have you seen the woman ANNA fixed at every station, Oh starstammer, smoke-roar, peering left, then right trains race to deceit. finally crossing the tracks at the sites of blame MALE VOICE where breaths accrued If they had crushed us The woman stoops on broken glass for every shard and not hollowed our eyes with bayonets FEMALE VOICE The woman I am lonely within VOICES Dayenu The mind is its own place:

MALE VOICE MALE VOICE If they had twisted screws Hier ruhen alle Töte. in Soreh’s legs Here rest all the dead and not ripped the lips from Faigel’s face MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES Country of Orphaned VOICES Silhouettes . . . Dayenu City of Cloud . . . Outpost of Crowded Griefs ANNA Ultima Thule These are the generations of Shutdown Skies . . . of Ostroleka, of Brok, of Hell on earth What do you know about when liquidated futures or bones god slept in denied ground? 27 She cannot find their ground, MULTIPLE SPOKEN VOICES nor the fate of their bones . . . Song-stripped hungering through the Oblivion lists for their names . . . Mires Evidence What use are you whose center flames Battered everywhere whose circumference Legacies is a nowhere choked with trails . . . Ergo

Region where unreason Sightless tethers the missing parts . . . Starshine Exfoliating Terrain of Unanimous Night . . . Disheveled Landscape of Ghost-swarm . . . Heaven “our father died of marches, our Outstretched mother of an enormous inhale . . .” Plenitude they could not dye Emanating the world their own color Waste

Outback of Unwriting Here meaning unknown Endless meaning undone . . . Refugees Emigrate Underground of Lacerated Mouths . . . On Foot Each poem is a grave . . . Here ANNA I cannot make enough poems Eveningnoonmorningnight Knows The mind shapes neither No Heaven nor Hell Earthly The mind is its own place . . . Waltz 28 ANNA As if as then as when a heaviness lightens as Now I remember I breathe a breath of you each Day I remember as then you were with me in August In Brok sun kindled the pines circling the river Water flowed warm I rocked on the porch And watched you swim like a perch you like a fish Swept back and forth just like a fish now tears Undo you my life is worth no more than a dishrag No more than a crumb Soreleh is at my side she bears A leaf a pencil some paper she has found a leaf these Words are stone she has brought one leaf And the water was warm now syllables drown in these Rivers a leaf yellow and orange still speckled with green Expelled from the garden sky-deep the debris

(Anna closes the box. The voices have left her. The room is silent again. She stares at the box for a long time . . . )

And I was unaware. 29 S tEFAN Weisman is a composer living Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year in New York City. Anthony Tommasini for Darkling. Rabinowitz received her MFA of The New York Times called his music from Columbia University, is Editor Emerita in Darkling “personal, moody and of American Letters & Commentary and skillfully wrought.” His one-act opera a vice-president of the Poetry Society of Fade, written with librettist David Cote, America. www.annarabinowitz.com was commissioned by the British opera company Second Movement and premiered Brian DeMaris, conductor, has worked in London in 2008. He is developing a for New York City Opera, Florida Grand multimedia family opera, The Scarlet Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Theatre Ibis, to be co-produced by the HERE Arts of Saint Louis, and Opera Festival of New Center and American Opera Projects. Jersey. He is the Director of Opera and Among his commissions are works for the Musical Theater at Ithaca College and is Bang on a Can People’s Commissioning on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival. Program, Sequitur, and eighth blackbird. DeMaris conducted the world premiere of He is a graduate of Bard College, Yale Darkling with American Opera Projects in University, and Princeton University, and 2006 and subsequent tours to Germany studied with David Lang, Joan Tower, and Poland. Martin Bresnick, Steven Mackey, and Paul Lansky. www.stefanweisman.com Maeve Höglund, soprano, is a versatile artist and consummate actress. With her Anna Rabinowitz is a poet based in singing, Maeve has found niches ranging New York City. Her most recent volume of from classical, jazz, and gospel music to poetry is Present Tense (Omnidawn 2010). performing contemporary and improvisa- At present, she is working on a mono- tory theater. MM, Manhattan School of drama based on her last book, The Wanton Music; BM, New England Conservatory. Sublime (Tupelo Press 2006) commissioned www.maevehoglund.com by American Opera Projects with music composed by Tarik O’Regan. Rabinowitz’s Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano, per- other books include Darkling, soon to be forms in a wide range of styles and venues, published in a bilingual German-English from Purcell to Pierrot Lunaire, Cherubino translation by luxbooks, Weisbaden, to The King & I, J.S. Bach to P.D.Q. Bach. Germany, and At the Site of Inside Out She has sung for New York City Opera, (University of Massachusetts Press Carnegie Hall, the Edinburgh Festival, 1997), which won the Juniper Prize. Other London’s West End, Orpheus Chamber awards include a National Endowment Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestra for the Arts Fellowship and nomina- of St. Luke’s, the Waverly Consort, and the tions for a Pushcart Prize and ForeWord Wooster Group. www.hai-ting.com 30 J on GaRRISON, tenor, has sung leading ing Lee Hoiby’s This is the Rill Speaking roles with more than eighty opera compa- (2008), Stefan Weisman’s Darkling (2006), nies around the world, and with most of the and Paula Kimper’s Patience & Sarah principal orchestras in the United States (1998) and developed operas including and Europe. He has been the principal Séance on a Wet Afternoon (Stephen tenor for three Live from Lincoln Center Schwartz, 2009 premiere), Before Night broadcasts and has recorded for Sony, Falls (Jorge Martín, 2010 premiere) and EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and Naxos. Heart of Darkness (Tarik O’Regan, 2011 premiere). www.operaprojects.org Mark Uhlemann, bass-baritone, performs around the world with such Darkling was first performed at the East companies as the Metropolitan Opera, 13th Street Theater (New York City, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, and February 26 to March 18, 2006), directed Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Manchester by Michael Comlish and produced by music festivals. An accomplished recitalist, he has also premiered works by American Opera Projects. contemporary American composers to Darkling: A Poem by Anna Rabinowitz critical acclaim. www.markuhlemann.com was published by Tupelo Press, Dorset, Matt Gray, director of spoken voices, is Vermont, 2001. the Producing Director at American Opera Projects where he has directed numerous This recording was made possible, in productions including the Philadelphia part, by support from the Aaron Copland premiere of Darkling and Semmelweis (for Fund for Music Recording Program, the which he is also librettist). He is best known Composer Assistance Program of the as the co-creator of the twelve-part serial- American Music Center, the Peter J. Sharp ized play Penny Dreadful (2007–2009, Brick Foundation, and Friends of Darkling. Theater). American Opera Projects is made possible American Opera Projects (AOP), with public funds from the New York State located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, is an Council on the Arts and the New York City opera company devoted to the develop- Department of Cultural Affairs. ment of innovative opera and to supporting the work of living composers and libret- Special thanks to Michael Comlish, tists. Since its beginning in 1988, AOP J. David Jackson, and the entire casts and has blazed a trail in the new opera scene, crews of Darkling’s development and pro- emphasizing the involvement of the audi- ductions. ence in the creative process and the commissioning of works that speak to contem- With fond remembrance of Elzbieta porary America. AOP has presented more Czyzewska (1938–2010) and Lee Hoiby than fifteen world premiere operas, includ- (1926–2011). 31 Music by Stefan Weisman Tom Chiu, violin 1 Libretto by Anna Rabinowitz Philip Payton, violin 2 Kenji Bunch, viola Maeve Höglund, soprano Darkling Raman Ramakrishnan, cello Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano Jon Garrison, tenor Brian DeMaris, conductor Mark Uhlemann, bass-baritone

Disc 1 Disc 2 1 Prologue 6:07 1 There’s Been a Slippage 3:01 Quartet Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Quartet 2 Inside: A Story 2:26 2 Among Remains 1:17 Spoken Voices • Quartet Spoken Voices • Quartet 3 Why Does It End Like This? 3:52 3 As If a Pen’s Breathprint 3:53 Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Spoken Voices • Quartet Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Quartet 4 Heel and Toe 3:19 4 Is It Re-entry They Are After 2:20 Spoken Voices • Quartet Spoken Voices • Quartet 5 Three Weeks Earlier 2:42 5 This Paper Life 0:53 Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Spoken Voices • Quartet Spoken Voices • Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann 6 Wedding Dance 1:38 6 You Haven’t Been to America 3:59 Quartet Spoken Voices • Quartet 7 Swarms of Bees (Passage to America) 4:04 7 Owned by a Heat 2:08 Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Spoken Voices • Quartet Spoken Voices 8 They Will Not Ask 4:36 8 A Single Hope 5:37 Chinn • Quartet Garrison • Quartet 9 Hamburg, 1928 (My Ship Sets Sail) 4:12 9 My Child, There Are No Buses 1:15 Höglund • Spoken Voices • Quartet Spoken Voices 10 Half-Tones in Half-Dark (Believe Me) 2:05 10 Salvage of Coats 4:41 Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Spoken Voices • Quartet Uhlemann • Quartet 11 Everywhere Feathers Leap 2:02 11 So Little Cause 5:03 Höglund • Quartet Spoken Voices • Quartet 12 Wheeling, Writhing 1:36 12 Dayenu 10:26 Spoken Voices • Garrison Höglund • Chinn • Garrison • Uhlemann • Spoken Voices • Quartet 13 It Is September 2:47 Total 44:40 Spoken Voices • Quartet Total 41:33

DDD TROY1315/16 WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM ALBANY RECORDS U.K. ALBANY RECORDS U.S. Box 137, Kendal, Cumbria 915 Broadway, Albany, NY La8 0Xd 12207 tel 01539 824008 tel 518.436.8814 © 2011 Albany Records WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL fax 518.436.0643 MADE IN THE USA PANTONE 7504 AND BLACK

Darkling STEFAN WEISMAN ANNA RABINOWITZ

Music by Stefan Weisman Libretto by Anna Rabinowitz

Maeve Höglund • Soprano Hai-Ting Chinn • Mezzo-Soprano Jon Garrison • Tenor Mark Uhlemann • Bass-Baritone

Tom Chiu • Violin 1 Philip Pay ton • Violin 2 Kenji Bunch • Viola Raman Ramakrishnan • Cello AN OPERA •

Brian DeMaris Conductor

Spoken Voices • Adam Belvo, David S. Cohen, Emily Coffin, Elzbieta Czyzewska, Edward Furs, Roger Grunwald, Denice Kondik, Eva Vidavska Kumar, Carol Monda, Mick O’Brien, Patrick Porter, Karen Sternberg, Asher Suss, Hollis Witherspoon, Mark Uhlemann, arkling Perri Yaniv D Music produced and engineered by Judith Sherman with Jeanne Velonis, engineering and editing assistant. Spoken voices directed by Matt Gray, and engineered by Tom Hamilton.

TROY1315/16 WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM DDD ALBANY RECORDS U.S. TROY1315/16 915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207 tel 518.436.8814 fax 518.436.0643 ALBANY RECORDS U.K. Box 137, Kendal, Cumbria La8 0Xd WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL tel 01539 824008 © 2011 Albany Records

TROY1315/16 MADE IN THE USA BLACK ONLY. RUN CMYK OR K ONLY. PRINTER DECISION

Who will acknowledge things of darkness as their own?