First Glimpse 2022 - the other side
Music by J.E. Hernández
Text by Troy Defour
Aaren Rivard, tenor
Kelly Horsted, piano
Johan tussles with self while coordinators check them into a drug rehab program.
Text:
JOHAN:
If I feel torn inside,
But I feel decayed outside.
Who can heal my harm?
Only me, only me.
It’s only a few scattered glass shards. Maybe a pole of two got knocked down. I swear I was signaling but I guess I didn’t see the first pole - the urban planning systems formulas make no sense. Who puts a pole on a sidewalk. Walk! I gotta call someone to walk my dog if I’m gonna be here for a week my mother spent a week in Jamaica on vacation before she died.
Did you say you had a dog just now?
Aching in my soul,
pulsing, carving me out whole.
Who can bless my bruise?
Only me… only me.
Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That scene where tey all walk down the black and white hallway sorta feels like this place - but without the walls that are black and white. All About Eve was on last night before I came. Not came as in masturbating but before I arrived here. Sorry! I interrupted you! What kind of dog was it again?
My mother only loved feeding our dog vegetarian food.
This door handle feels like ice.
Freezing time, wishing the process in nice
A turn of the knob, and a turn to talk
Rehab is scary…
I’ll come back when the weather is bad
Hm… It’s warm inside… here
Welcoming smiles
I will care for my cures
Only me… only me.
Video - Chris Comfort
Audio - Craig Slon
Production Assistant - Joel Kalow
Recorded on location at South Oxford Space, Brooklyn, NY
Created in Cycle 11 of The American Opera Project’s “Composers & the Voice” Fellowship Training Program
C&V Artistic Director: Steven Osgood
Head of Music: Mila Henry
Head of Drama: Matt Gray
Music Directors: Mila Henry, Kelly Horsted, Ron Robinson
http://aopopera.org/composers-voice
Composers & the Voice is made possible in part by generous multi-year awards from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.