First Performance
April 4, 2014
Opera Memphis
Mid-town Sears Building
Memphis, TN, USA
Instrumentation
mezzo soprano, violin, Bb clarinet, cello
Duration
13'
Listen
Program Notes
Abandoned was commissioned by Opera Memphis as part of their Ghosts of Crosstown project. Composed October 2013-January 2014 in Memphis and Istanbul, it was premiered April 4, 2014 in Memphis by Opera Memphis at their Midtown Opera Festival. Its duration is approximately thirteen minutes. This dramatic work is about the abandoned Sears building in midtown Memphis. The building is a woman at 3am at night longing for the sun to come out. As the building has no sense of time, she is afraid that the sun will never come out again. She is anxiety ridden. There is desperation for the sun’s attention and love. There is passionate yearning with turbulent emotions. Doubts clash with kernels of hope.
Abandoned
an abandoned building speaks to the sun at night
Character: a large, deserted, gray battleship of a building facing east
Time and Place: 3am, autumn, Memphis
You will never return.
I know this.
I've re-solved my self...
or else I must wrestle with this UNresolving
again again until the fact of it hits!
Nothing feels
quite so heavy
as missing you.
And the night it's so cruel- spreading out
drunk and dragging it's body behind it's self
until every room is washed blue-grey near nothingness.
But I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
In case you change your mind. I'm here.
Facing eastward, waiting,
staring endlessly over rooftops
while the street cools beneath my feet
Come back.
You left, turning the sky into fire.
Come back.
And now I am so much less of a thing.
Come back.
To see your face.
To see your face...
your smile that cuts the night in two.
Nothing on earth compares to you.
Not the moon- lazy in the deathless sky.
Not the stars- all buckshot scatter.
Where have you gone, my love?
I hold you now, my love.
Quitely here, in my mind, my love.
Softly here, in my heart, my love.
Shhhhhhhhhhhh...
I will find patience.
I am patient.
I will find stillness.
I am still.
So, this is all to say... I miss you,
if missing were word word enough.
If missing could bring you back.
Please come back?
Okay, then.
I understand. I do. I'll try...
to diminish and distract,
paint peeling from my walls,
dust burying me in soundlessness,
and rain, and rust, and wind,
I will try.
I will try to stand my ground
while the night world falls around me.
But maybe you could give me a sign? Just maybe?
Just save me.
Burn me through.
Burn me through.
Burn me through.
In your absence, I am absence itself.
Come back.
Come back.
Come back.
Come back.
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