The Art of Memory
opera-in-progress
OPERA AMERICA “Discovery” Award for Female Opera Composers, 2015
Individual Artist award, New York State Council for the Arts, 2021
"The Art of Memory" is an ensemble opera with 5 singers and 8 instrumentalists, set in 4th-c. Africa and Rome. We uncover Christian father Augustine's path to sainthood via betrayal. We follow his public story of love, addiction, ambition and heartache to 386 CE where Christian creed rings Buddhist—even Muslim—and Rome is falling.
Then, in a world with eerily familiar conflicts, Augustine is faced with the sin of his own ambition. To marry into money and power, he must forsake his slave-born concubine of fourteen years. Keeping their son, he sends her back to Africa alone. However he never remarries. Overcome with grief, he converts to Christianity. Becomes a saint, we know. But what happens to her? His “Confessions” only tell his own story. Here in this opera, the Concubine is given voice.
Excerpt: Act I Scene V, “Concubine Song”
To bring his inner agony into universally shared experience, Augustine is sung by a woman—soprano Megan Schubert— in “The Art of Memory.” While I sing baptizer Bishop Ambrose.
My ensemble reflects polyglot cultures of long-ago Rome and present-day U.S., with elements of—modernist math, live electronic processing, free jazz drumming, string quartet-cum-electric guitar, madscape polka—and ancient music—courtly medieval Arabic rhythms, Early Christian hymns (the first congregational chant in the Latin Church)—Nigerian clay pot udu, Egyptian chalice drum and primordial frame drum. A live audience and their reactions complete the circle of meaning, integral to "The Art of Memory".
We are all Augustine—and Concubine—now.
Excerpt: Act I Scene VII, “Speechify”
Please go to the vimeo page to see full videos of the 2016 rehearsal if desired.
