FORT WORTH OPERA Darren K
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Daniel Crozier Composer Peter M. Krask Librettist FORT WORTH OPERA Darren K. Woods General Director Timothy Myers Conductor PREMIERE RECORDING WITH BLOOD, WITH INK Music...........................................Daniel Crozier Libretto.......................................Peter M. Krask Translations of poems of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Margaret Sayers Peden as published in Sor Juana, or The Traps of Faith by Octavio Paz, used by arrangement with Harvard University Press. Conductor...................................Timothy Myers Stage Director.......................... Dona D. Vaughn Producing Director.........................Kurt Howard Director of Production...............Adam Schwartz Scenic Designer................................Erhard Rom Costume Designer.......................Austin Scarlett Lighting Designer............................Sean Jeffries Makeup / Wig Designer..................Steven Bryant Stage Manager.............................Joe Gladstone Assistant Director.......................David Gutierrez Chorus Master.............................Stephen Carey CAST: Dying Juana..................................Sandra Lopez Young Juana..............................Vanessa Becerra María Luisa...............................Audrey Babcock Padre Antonio..................................Ian McEuen Archbishop Seijas...........................Jesse Enderle PROGRAM NOTES.............by Peter M. Krask Sor Isabel...................................Corrie Donovan “I spoke the truth. I spoke the truth but none Sor Rosa........................................Clara Nieman believed me.” It is in trying to fathom that con- Sor Andrea................................Meaghan Deiter viction and its hellish cost—as lived by the extra- CHORUS OF NUNS: ordinary Sor Juana—that With Blood, With Ink Laura Collins, Tracy Davis, Wendy Delgado, takes the stage. Janna Hinebaugh, Emily Hueske, Candice Maughan, With Blood, With Ink is based upon the life Elizabeth Melendez, Shannon Moy, Oneyda Padierna, of the visionary Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, beloved Charis Peden, Jillian Rangel, Amanda Trousdale. 17th-century Mexican poet, intellectual, heroic ❦ 2 ❦ Daniel Crozier Peter M. Krask Timothy Myers Dona D. Vaughn Darren K. Woods Composer Librettist Conductor Stage Director General Director champion of women’s freedom, and nun. Her knew who she was in a world that found that choice of life in a convent over marriage protected knowledge unacceptable. her brilliant creative life until she was betrayed Framed in nine scenes, each introduced by by ecclesiastical authorities. Celebrated as the chanted fragments of the Requiem Mass, the “Phoenix of America,” Sor Juana is the first great one-act opera begins as Sor Juana, after years of literary figure in the Americas. Revered in her forced silence, lies on her deathbed. Facing her homeland—but only now being re-discovered in past, Juana has a feverish vision of her younger the United States—she asked a simple question: self, an elusive shadow she cannot reach or warn, “Why must I be less than a man?” For this, she while events build to their calamitous completion. was forced by the Inquisition to renounce her life’s Then, at last, arms outstretched through the ruin work, signing an oath of silence in her own blood. of years and memories, she finally embraces her With Blood, With Ink is influenced by the younger self. Transformed, she dies. operas of Verdi and Britten, works in which an With Blood, With Ink moves freely between individual destiny tragically collides with the impla- expansive lyric tonality and the heightened drama cable forces of history and community. It is in the of atonality, always embracing traditional operatic spirit of her voice, which speaks to contemporary forms—recitatives, arias, and ensembles. In com- questions of conscience, identity, and personal, posing the opera, Daniel Crozier said his first task intellectual, and religious freedom, that composer is to approach the characters as a psychologist— Daniel Crozier and I humbly approached this com- or more accurately, a detective—seeking to grasp plex and transcendent woman—a person who their individual psyches, their rich and distinctive ❦ 3 ❦ contradictions and motives in order to find the Seijas. The Sanctus, first heard when Juana takes specific musical language with which to render her vows, returns towards the opera’s end when them vividly human onstage. An example: the Dying Juana faces her younger self, bleeding and Baroque flourishes—trilling woodwinds and vo- defeated. This time it appears as a simple lullaby, cal embellishments which decorate the lines of at first painfully ironic, then gloriously radiant— Padre Antonio, a father confessor who asserts his this evolution making music out of the driving authority via what is today called the “humble- conceit of Sor Juana’s greatest poems: the hope of brag.” The leitmotiv formed from Sor Juana’s full glory in what looks like devastation, the phoenix name, is stated in the first scene by Dying Juana, soaring up from the ashes. echoed by an ever-present chorus of nuns. As she With Blood, With Ink is an old “new” opera, moves through her dream, this leitmotiv under- developed over twenty years ago when Daniel goes musical changes mirroring Juana’s own Crozier and I were graduate students at the emotional transformation: anger, pride, tender- Peabody Conservatory under the astute, challen- ness, defiance, and finally resignation. ging, and generous direction of Roger Brunyate. The central musical element of the opera is Our opera was born in a student production—for the use of the original Gregorian chant melodies one day only. Opera cannot live on the page alone: taken from the Liber Usualis which match the our hope was that our beloved Juana would come libretto’s textural quotations from the Requiem to life again. The work slowly made its way in the Mass. Serving as a commentary on the dramatic world with other university performances. It was action, the chant fragments establish the eccle- awarded a National Opera Association prize in1994 siastical environment in which these characters and more recently was twice heard in concert at move—the cloister is always present. Moreover, the New York City VOX program. But it is only now, they ground the story in the urgent present-tense with the acclaimed 2014 production at Fort Worth nature of Dying Juana’s quest to make final sense Opera and its subsequent recording for Albany of her fate before she dies. No matter how far Records that the work has finally reached the she travels in her memory, she must return to professional operatic world. what she knows will be her final night. Introducing each scene, the chant melodies shift and grow, almost becoming characters in their own right. The Dies Irae quote is also the source of an extended musical interlude, before Sor Juana’s disastrous interview with Archbishop ❦ 4 ❦ PLOT SYNOPSIS 17 April, 1695, in the study of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, in the convent of San Jerónimo in Mexico City, capital of the Spanish colony of New Spain. The action unfolds during all of the years embraced by Sor Juana’s memory. SCENE ONE: Et lux perpetua Sor Juana is on her deathbed, feverish, attended by Sor Isabel and Sor Rosa. She rises and re- counts her life: her upbringing by her single mo- ther, her desire for knowledge, and her poetry. SCENE TWO: Inter oves Through the chanting of the nuns, Dying Juana Oil painting of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz seems to hear the voice of María Luisa, the by Miguel Cabrea, 1750. Countess de Paredes, her confidant, patron, and devoted mother figure. María Luisa is searching SCENE FOUR: Lux aeterna for Young Juana, who enters jubilant from a Sor Rosa and Sor Isabel argue about Sor Juana’s victory in debate with the court’s learned men. religious beliefs and apparent special treatment. The time has come to discuss Juana’s future. Young Juana enters with Padre Antonio who The girl refuses to marry; her best choice is criticizes her excessive attention to her books and therefore to join a convent. Padre Antonio Nuñez lack of orthodoxy. Young Juana attempts to explain de Miranda, the court Father Confessor, is sent her beliefs while Padre Antonio fights to control his for. He is ecstatic at the news. Young Juana asks rage. Dying Juana enters this trio, expressing her that she be allowed to continue her study and own much-changed view. The Mother Superior writing in the convent. He agrees, but in a fierce interrupts, upset by this dissention. She rebukes aside admits he has other plans for her. Young Juana. SCENE THREE: Oro supplex SCENE FIVE: Te decet hymnus Dying Juana watches her younger self make her Young Juana is alone in her cell writing. Sor Rosa vows to enter the convent of San Jeronimo. announces the arrival of a mystery guest. María ❦ 5 ❦ Luisa enters and uneasily greets Sor Juana. She renounces her work. Sor Andrea frantically enters, announces that the royal court will be returning announcing that a peasant mob has burned the to Spain, news that devastates Young Juana. royal palace. The Archbishop departs, reminding The Countess promises to publish Sor Juana’s Young Juana “there is no one left to protect you work in Europe. The two women realize that now.” Young Juana writes to Padre Antonio, en- this is their final good-bye. María Luisa gives closing the shattered bracelet she received from Young Juana a bejeweled bracelet. Watched by María Luisa. a hidden Padre Antonio, the two kiss and María Luisa tearfully departs. There follows a bitter SCENE EIGHT: Confutatis maledictis and physically violent confrontation between a Accepting defeat, Young Juana renews her convent- horrified Padre Antonio and Young Juana. She ual vows in front of the nuns and Archbishop, as banishes him from her cell. administered by the triumphant Padre Antonio. She cuts herself with a knife and signs the oath in SCENE SIX: Liber scriptus blood, renouncing her work and pledging silence. Young Juana writes the introduction to her Left alone, she sees Dying Juana for the first time. soon-to-be-published book in which she asks, Filled with compassion and dignity, Dying Juana “Why must be I be less than a man?” Dying goes to her younger self and binds her wound.