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| Uncovered by Night | |
| Text Author: | Roger Zahab - based in part on stories taken from Historical Reminiscences of Summit County by General Lucius V. Bierce (1854) and Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County by Ex-Sheriff Samuel A. Lane (1892) |
| Date Completed: | May 28, 2000 |
| Duration: | about 45 minutes |
| Instrumentation: | revised version: flute/piccolo, violin, viola, 'cello and organ/piano Characters: Spirit Master/Minister/Judge/Barber/ex-District Attorney George Bates - tenor Indian Ghost/Jim Brown- baritone Lady/Sarah Brown - soprano Lucy Brown - soprano Dan Brown - tenor |
| First Performance: | Peninsula at the Bronson Memorial Church on June 24 and 25 , 2000 Revised Version of 2003 first performed March 7 and 8, 2003 at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, New York City |
| Comments: | to Christopher Hixson who had the idea Commissioned for Ohio Chautauqua 2000 Peninsula by Fred & Laura Bidwell and Judy Ernest & Jack Harley, with additional support from Richard and Mary King and Mitchell Kahan & Christopher Hixson |
| Program Notes: | from the 2001 performance at Cuyahoga Valley National Park: The audience is placed at a crossroads not only of streets and people, but also at an intersection of constantly shifting time through which the traces of many spirits of Peninsula and the Cuyahoga Valley reach out to us. Two texts were particularly useful to me - Historical Reminiscences of Summit County by General Lucius V. Bierce (1854) and Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County by ex-Sheriff Samuel A. Lane (1892). I have tried to rescue from the roaring stream of Time stories of people just barely snagged in the net of history, unaware that they are dead and tortured by the passions of the living. This ghost opera of about forty minutes is cast in six scenes with musical interludes between Scenes 3 & 4 and 5 & 6. The stories told in the first scene - the massacre of Moravian Indians (i.e. converted to Christianity by Moravian missionaries) by a Col. David Williamson, and from another angle in the second - the actual response made by one of the last Indians seen in Richfield after the War of 1812 (both taken mostly verbatim from Bierce's volume) cast a very long shadow over the evening for me. The third scene, entirely of my own invention, is an hommage to my grandfather, who seems to have had an enormous influence on me though he died before I was born. Scenes 4 and 5 are entirely connected with the nineteenth century local hero and notorious counterfeiter Jim Brown, his wife Lucy Brown, their daughter (unnamed in Lane's book but called Sarah by me) and their very talented son Daniel, who seems in a truly perverse way to have captured the admiration (and more) of ex-District Attorney George C. Bates. The story of Bates' interview with Dan Brown was told in a letter from Bates himself to Lane. The last scene is a chance gathering of strands of the past reaching toward the future - in my fancy the confusingly-named Daniel James and Sarah Carter are descendants of all the others who have come before them - spirits, each with unfinished business and consumed with lusts that cannot be satisfied. The musical ghosts in this work stream in from a great many places - except for "The Last Rose of Summer" there are no direct quotes of anyone else's music, but there are many conscious homages throughout that were dictated by the characters' personae and the times they lived in - and the time travelling aspect is projected as much by the styles of music as by anything else. Accordingly the shades of Britten, Cage, Debussy, Faure, Ives, Lehar, Mahler, Schumann and Stephen Sondheim as well as a kind of honky-tonk ragtime and Arab flute music are shamelessly intermingled. I am deeply grateful to all the performers (from last year and this) for their devotion and the inspiration they have provided me. I have wanted to do something like this for many years; I'm thankful that Christopher Hixson asked me in the first place and extremely grateful for the support of Fred & Laura Bidwell, Judy Ernest & Jack Harley, Dr. Jack & Libby Jacobs, Richard & Mary King and Mitchell Kahan & Christopher Hixson, who provided the funding to make Uncovered by Night possible. Gathered around me, the performers and the great crowd of spirits from Peninsula's past join me in thanking you. Uncovered by Night was commissioned for the Ohio Chautauqua 2000/Peninsula festival and first performed in Peninsula at the Bronson Memorial Church on June 24 and 25 , 2000. Special thanks to the current cast and production staff who have shown me my work in a fresh light, and to Rob for adding to his multiple personalities. This summer's performances are the result of great thoughtfulness and much hard work from Mary Pat Doorley, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Cuyahoga Valley Association (Pat Bobel, Katie Hoy) the Ohio Erie Canal Opera Project which includes Christopher Hixson, Dick and Mary King, Jane and Benny Leonard, and Charlie and Maryanne Moyer, and my research assistant Kyle Liston. None of these performances - and nothing of my musical life - would be possible without the very dear friends who perform, compose, and direct this evening. They have come from far and near and bring such a wealth of devotion, skill and experience to prove once again that writing for one's own friends and time is the greatest joy (let the future fend for itself). Some thoughts on the opera of history The history of the United States echoes with many recurring features of universal human history, but especially with that encompassing restlessness (desires for land, wealth, power or merely curiosity) that compels people to leave their long-established homes to plunge into the unknown wilderness. This human trait has become encoded into our national character though we cannot claim exclusive rights to it. Ohio has witnessed such migrations of people from before the time of the mysterious Mound Builders up to the present. Perhaps all accounts can be reduced to the same story: an established community is faced with the influx of outsiders who either assimilate (and change) the older group or chase them out. The former outsiders become "natives" and the process is repeated. In the midst of this frustrating predictability lie unique artifacts, legends, works of art and historical documents that provide evidence of exuberant lives. It can be seen that accepted notions of what constitutes a distinct community have gradually changed over time. and I believe the change will become more rapid with the loss of a sense of physical "place" as a frame of reference. Since human passions are both cause and evidence of these changes, I have undertaken to present some defining moments in the histories of actual persons as the basic material to create a still-evolving work of many layers and dimensions. I wish to place the audience in the role of time traveler so that in revisiting moments of triumph and devastation we may ponder what many feel are becoming some essential questions for the future: Why is "difference" such a difficult thing for human societies to accept ? and What will happen to our species as we become increasingly capable of genetic "improvements" or the removal of differences? My so-called "operas" are really works of a kind of investigation of fact and spirit, in which the dead are brought into the present to tell us what most inflamed passion and what precipitated downfall. Perhaps some will find a thread of empathy running through these diverse characters. Roger Zahab June 2001 |