Soprano

A carnivorous love song but with a decided sting in the tail.

Benedetto sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e l'anno              Blessed be the day and the month and the year
e la stagione e 'l tempo et l'ora e 'l punto             and the seasons and the time and the hour and the moment

Two of the songs in Voices of Women were set to lyrics written by women. The Memory Tree, a reminiscence of a girl's childhood love and loss, was written by the contemporary New York poet, Anne Tallon.

Three Things was written by a man in a woman's voice. Yeats, in this extraordinarily moving poem, expresses a dead woman's longing for life. It is published in his volume The Winding Stair, under the sub-title Words for Music Perhaps. Yeats said that he didn't write the poems "so much that they be sung, as that I may define their kind of emotion to myself. I want them to be all emotional and all impersonal."  The third stanza presents a question of meaning in the phrase "and did after stretch and yawn."  Yeats uses this image in this and other poems to indicate sexual arousal, which she feels here after meeting her "rightful man." 

THE SINGING LESSON – Chamber Opera in Three Acts Based on the short stories of Katherine Mansfield (PD) for 2 Lyric Sopranos, 2 Dramatic Mezzo-Sopranos, 1  Contralto, 1 Tenor Buffo, 1 Basso Buffo, and small chamber orchestra: Cl in Bb, Bsn, Tpt in C, Bs Tbn, vln, cb, and Perc (1-2): wind chimes, triangle, sleigh bells, cowbell, tam-tam, vibraslap, wood block, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, tubular bells, snare drum, bass drum, and celesta.

ACT ONE / THE GARDEN PARTY: Synopsis: Laura is helping her mother, Mrs. Sheridan, in the preparations for a garden party, when it is discovered that a death has transpired at a nearby working-class neighborhood.  Laura is in favor of canceling the party, but other members of her family are not.  After the party is over, Laura is instructed by her mother to visit the bereaved family, which results in an enormous personal change – or does it?