a storm of things foreseen
(2025)
for soprano (plus guiro and maraca), flute (doubling piccolo), and violoncello
duration: 7’
SMMP No. 133a (cs)
Program Note
In Agamemnon, Aeschylus sets the story of the great king’s doomed return to Mycenae after a decade spent at the siege of Troy. Among the spoils of war he carries is Cassandra, daughter of Priam, and a priestess of Apollo. She is plagued by visions of her own impending death as well as that of Agamemnon at the hands of Clytemnestra, the queen, and cursed by Apollo so that the visions and prophecies she proclaims will never be believed.
a storm of things foreseen is drawn from my larger theatrical work, Cassandra, which is a setting of what is often termed Cassandra’s “mad scene.” The libretto eliminates all the other characters, presenting Cassandra’s lines as a monologue. The texts are dense with imagery and reference. At the beginning of a storm of things foreseen, Cassandra invokes the myth of Philomela by referring to the fate of the nightingale. She then laments the fall of Troy, and contemplates the shift from having been nourished by the waters of the river Scamandrus to her current state in which death is imminent, standing metaphorically at the rivers Cocytus and Acheron, rivers of suffering in the underworld. She recalls the horrific scene in which Achilles drags the corpse of her brother Hector across the fields before the walls of Troy and notes that all this destruction happened despite having made substantial sacrifices to the gods. Indeed, abandonment by the gods emerges as a central theme of Cassandra’s speech. As the scene ends, she is suddenly consumed by terrifying visions that affect her like a fever: “Flame and pain sweeps me once again.”
Dedicated to the many Cassandras of our time who have warned about calamities both existential and personal, this piece is written for the remarkable soprano Susan Narucki.
from Agamemnon, by Aeschylus:
Oh for the nightingale's pure song and a fate like hers.
With fashion of beating wings the gods clothed her
and a sweet life gave her and without lamentation.
But for me awaits the sheer edge of the biting sword!
Oh marriage of Paris, death to the men beloved!
Alas, Scamandrus, water my fathers drank.
At your springs I too
drank and grew strong. Ah,
now beside the deadly rivers, Cocytus
and Acheron, I must cry out my prophecies.
O sorrow, sorrow of my city dragged to uttermost death.
O sacrifices my father made at the wall.
Flocks of sheep slaughtered there.
And no use at all
to save our city from its pain…
And I too, with brain ablaze in fever, shall go down.
But this is evil, see!
Now once again the pain of grim, true prophecy
shivers my whirling brain in a storm of things foreseen.
παπαῖ, οἷον τὸ πῦρ. ἐπέρχεται δέ μοι.
(Oh, flame and pain that sweeps me up again!)
ὀτοτοῖ, Λύκει᾽ Ἄπολλον, οἲ ἐγὼ ἐγώ.
(Lycian Apollo, Lord of Light, aye me, the pain!)
Texts by Aeschylus
Adapted from translations by Richmond Lattimore, Ian Johnston, and David Slavitt
Greek pronunciations by Mary France
|
