Music of Robert Nelson
A Nyw Werke is Come on Honde
Robert Nelson (b. 14 September 1941 in Phoenix, AZ) has long been interested in theatrical music, as both a composer and coach/conductor. This meshes with a life-long interest in the widest range of musical idioms—from the most avant-garde contemporary effects to current jazz and popular styles. Writing for the theater has allowed him to explore all these various idioms and employ whichever were most appropriate to the project at hand.
His theatrical experience has included a long involvement as composer for the extraordinary mime troupe of the University of Houston School of Theater. His collaborations with the late director Claude Caux resulted in music that ranges from an acid rock score for an adaptation of Poe's Tell-Tale Heart to a highly expressionist score for a dramatization of Lord Byron's Darkness to a neo-classic suite composed for an extended Pilobolus-like mime based on the graphics of M. C. Escher. He also served for fifteen seasons as music director and composer for the Houston Shakespeare Festival, during which time he composed songs and incidental music for nearly the entire canon of Shakespeare plays.
Nelson has always loved the voice and has composed numerous choral works and music for solo voice. His interest in both vocal music and theatrical music led him naturally to opera. In addition to A Room With a View, his operatic works include Tickets, Please and The Demon Lover, both one-act chamber operas with librettos by Sidney Berger; and The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville, with libretto by Kate Pogue. His most recent collaboration with Buck Ross is Shadows and Music, a dramatic cycle for soprano, mezzo-soprano, violin, and piano based loosely on the lives of Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
In A Room With a View, he was able to bring together all the elements of writing for the theater. His approach to the score is somewhat cinematic, using the music both to supply subtext to the action on stage and to provide continuity among the many diverse scenes. The story itself allowed him to draw on musical idioms to characterize the various locales—Italy in particular—and to underscore dramatic situations that were alternately comic and deeply emotional.
Nelson received his DMA from the University of Southern California where he studied composition with Ingolf Dahl and Halsey Stevens and opera production with Walter Ducloux. With fellow composers Michael Horvit and Thomas Benjamin, he co-authored the widely used textbook Techniques and Materials of Tonal Music (5th Edition, Wadsworth-ITP, 1998). Nelson currently serves as Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Houston Moores School of Music.
When the lights dimmed in Cullen Performance Hall that November evening in 1993, little did I realize the operatic treat the night had in store. The premiere of Robert Nelson's new opera was not new at all, in one respect, due to the familiarity of E. M. Forster's delightful love story, A Room With a View. Composer Nelson and his librettist Buck Ross had promised a work faithful to the literary original. They delivered the goods with complete musical and dramatic success, producing a masterpiece of musical theater brimming over with wonderful tunes and compelling with its expert mixture of believable characters caught up in all-too-human emotions.
Seeing the premiere of A Room With a View persuaded me to work with Nelson and Ross to produce a recording that would do the score justice. We decided on a concert version that would not only fit on one compact disc but might also lead to further performance opportunities short of a full-scale staged production. Librettist Ross agreed that the structure of Forster's story and the nature of Nelson's music permitted successful abridgement, and the result is a concert work fully able to stand on its own merit. The core of the story is well captured in the Symphonic Scenes from A Room With a View, and the concert style of presentation permits the deployment on stage, with the singers, of the full ninety-plus musicians of a symphony orchestra—something very difficult to achieve in the opera pit of a staged production—greatly magnifying the dramatic impact and lyric sweep of Nelson's score.
The discovery of worthy, new music is a profound pleasure, and I hope that listeners to this compact disc will likewise recapture the emotions of that opening night when the curtain went up on A Room With a View. — John Proffitt
My attraction to the story of A Room with a View was immediate. I have always been drawn to its mix of romance and comedy and the heroine's dilemma was one I identified with strongly. But I had shelved the idea of an opera based upon it because of the need for so many locales to tell the story. Only after directing a production of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw did I realize how it could be done.
I had directed another of Robert Nelson's operas at that point and knew him to be an accomplished composer with a marvelous sense of the requirements of the theater. I presented the finished libretto to him one day as a surprise. He hadn't known I was working on it for him, but fortunately he was delighted.
To be true to E. M. Forster's gem of a novel, we both wanted the work to be quite romantic in its style, using a lush, full orchestra and providing singable set pieces in a traditional fashion.
A Room with a View was premiered 5 November 1993 in Cullen Performance Hall at the University of Houston, with the University Opera Theater and Symphony Orchestra, Peter Jacoby conducting.
Two Spirituals for Soprano and Orchestra
Spirituals are the religious folk songs of the American Negro. Along with work songs and field “hollers,” they appeared and grew up as an expression of slave culture on the plantations of the old South. The spirituals most poignantly expressed the yearnings of the slaves for freedom, often drawing on Old Testament themes and images. In the years following the Civil War they became more widely known when choral settings were performed as part of the touring repertory of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present day, spirituals were often set for solo voice with elaborate accompaniments, very much in the tradition of the art song. “City Called Heaven” and “My Soul's Been Anchored” both represent that tradition.
Two Spirituals for Soprano and Symphony Orchestra was premiered during the 1997 summer concert season of Houston's Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, with Débria Brown and the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, Franz Anton Krager conducting.
A Nyw Werke is Come on Honde
A Nywe Werk is Come on Honde, a cantata for the Advent or Christmas Season, was written in 1994 for the choruses of the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. Charles Hausmann, the Director of Choral Activities, wanted a piece that would use all the choral ensembles—the University Chorus, the Concert Chorale, and the Women's Chorus. My search for suitable texts turned up a number of medieval and early Renaissance poems that were all related in some way to the Advent and Christmas seasons. I decided to loosely structure the piece as a cantata with interpolated recitatives using biblical texts.
The opening and closing choruses were written for the combined choirs. They use Old English texts and were intended to evoke the tradition of the English Carol. No La Devemos Dormir appealingly depicts the anticipation and excitement of the coming birth of the Christ Child. The Spanish language naturally suggested the use of popular Spanish musical idioms. Sweet Was the Song is a traditional lullaby and so was written for the Women's Chorus. An Hymn, a Renaissance poem by Phineas Fletcher, is a deeply felt meditation that anticipates the grief of the crucifixion.
A Nywe Werk was premiered 16 March 1995 in Houston's Grace Presbyterian Church, with the Moores School Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Charles Hausmann conducting.
Symphonic Scenes from A ROOM WITH A VIEW
A Romantic Comic Opera in Two Acts (1993)
Libretto by Buck Ross, adapted from the novel by E. M. Forster
Cast in order of appearance
Miss Lavish, an expatriate romance novelist, Claudia Waite (soprano)
Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman on holiday in Italy, Elizabeth Wiles (soprano)
Mr. Emerson, a free-thinking Englishman on holiday in Italy, Richard Paul Fink (bass-baritone)
George Emerson, his son, Justin White (baritone)
Mr. Eager, the English chaplain in Florence, Joseph Evans (tenor)
Charlotte Bartlett, Lucy's cousin and chaperone, Débria Brown (mezzo-soprano)
Driver, Luis Ramirez (tenor)
Italian girl, Paulette Labbé-Beltràn (soprano)
Mrs. Honeychurch, Lucy's mother, Claudia Waite
Cecil Vyse, Lucy's fiancée, Joseph Evans
Mr. Beebe, an English chaplain, Omari Williams (baritone)
Synopsis of the complete opera
Material in brackets is omitted in the Concert Version heard in this recording.
Act I—Florence, Italy, 1907
[Lucy and her cousin/chaperone Charlotte meet the other English guests at their pension, the Bertolini, including a lady novelist, Miss Lavish and the free thinking Mr. Emerson and his taciturn son, George. The men offer to exchange rooms with the women so that the women can have a view.]
Scene 1 (I/2) On the street and inside the church of Santa Croce
Miss Lavish introduces the hesitant Lucy to the sights and smells of Italy. Left to wander the church of Santa Croce by herself, Lucy encounters the Emersons. Mr. Emerson encourages Lucy to understand George.
[Lucy witnesses a traumatic scene and George comes to her rescue. She is still puzzled by him.
Miss Lavish records details of Lucy's previous day as background for her new novel. Lucy and Charlotte are invited for a drive in the hills the next day by Mr. Eager, the stuffy English chaplain in Florence.]
Scene 2 (I/5) On a carriage ride to view the Italian countryside
On a carriage ride to the hills of Fiesole, Mr. Eager and Miss Lavish compete in their knowledge of Italy. Their Italian driver stops to pick up a rather amorous woman whom he claims is his sister. The disbelieving Mr. Eager huffily insists she get out of the carriage.
Mr. Emerson objects to discouraging happiness. When they arrive, the group splits up and Lucy is once more on her own. She inquires of the driver where the other people are and he leads her to a field of violets where, to the dismay of Charlotte, George kisses Lucy.
Scene 3 (I/6) Lucy's room at the Pension Bertolini
Back at the hotel, Lucy and Charlotte argue about George. Lucy is in a muddle. Charlotte prevents George from seeing Lucy and insists that they go to Rome to meet the Vyse family.
Act II—England, countryside, summer and fall of the same year.
[Lucy has become engaged to Cecil Vyse, a rather priggish man. Her mother is pleased, her brother is not.
Cecil reveals that he encountered some people in the National Gallery and told them about a nearby house for rent. Emerson was the name, he thinks. Lucy is upset.
Lucy's brother has invited George to go swimming with him and Mr. Beebe. While at the pond they accidentally encounter Mrs. Honeychurch and Cecil, and Lucy who are chagrined at their nakedness. It is Lucy's first sight of George since Italy.]
Scene 4 (II/4) The garden terrace at the Honeychurch home
On a lazy afternoon George has come to play tennis with Lucy's brother. Cecil reads aloud a passage from a trashy novel he has gotten from the library. It turns out to be Miss Lavish's novel and its heroine and hero are suspiciously like Lucy and George. George kisses Lucy again.
Scene 5 (II/5) The drawing room of the Honeychurch home
Lucy is furious with George and with Charlotte for revealing so many intimate details to Miss Lavish; She orders George out of her life. George resists and Charlotte prays for Lucy to follow her heart and go with George. Lucy refuses but she now knows she can't marry the unsuitable Cecil either.
[That night, Lucy breaks off her engagement with Cecil.
Lucy begs to go away to Greece to escape her problems. Her mother reluctantly consents.]
Scene 6 (II/8) In the carriage and in Mr. Beebe's study
Mrs. Honeychurch objects to Lucy running away but Lucy is adamant. While waiting to pick up Charlotte at church, Lucy encounters Mr. Emerson in the rectory. He convinces Lucy that her life is with George.
Scene 7 (II/9) Lucy's room in the Pension Bertolini, Florence.
On their honeymoon in Florence, Lucy and George realize that Charlotte helped them get together.
The Edythe Bates Old Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston has the mission of training aspiring young singers, coaches, and conductors for taking their places in the world as stage performers and teachers. The Center combines sound vocal study, intensive language diction training, stage direction, career counseling, and audition techniques. Each year, Center students have the opportunity to participate in four fully staged productions with orchestra in the acoustically superb 800-seat Moores Opera House and to avail themselves of the many opportunities community professional organizations such as Houston Grand Opera provide.
Moores School singers have gone onto strong professional careers. They have appeared in many U.S. opera houses, including the Met, Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, Seattle, New York City Opera, Carnegie Hall and various European houses.
At the University of Houston, the Moores School Symphony Orchestra (MSSO) is committed to musical excellence. Membership in the MSSO is open each semester to all graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Houston by audition.
During a typical season, the MSSO will perform ten to twelve concerts. Repertory includes an expansive cross section of the standard literature, 20th century works, and new music, including music by Moores School faculty and student composers.
Franz Anton Krager is Associate Professor of Conducting at the University of Houston, where he has served as Director of Orchestras at the Moores School of Music since 1992. In addition, he is director of orchestral studies and resident conductor for the Texas Music Festival and co-founder/artistic director of the Virtuosi of Houston.
Krager has served as guest conductor with the Houston Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony and the Florida West Coast Symphony, as well as the festival orchestras of Interlochen and Round Top. Overseas he has conducted the Romanian State Philharmonic, the Kazen National Philharmonic, the Musicfest International Orchestra of Wales, the Academic Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus in Germany and Japan's Koriyama Symphony.
Other recordings with the Moores School Symphony and Franz Anton Krager include a composer portrait of Michael Horvit, featuring the world premiere of Daughters of Jerusalem (Albany TROY265), and the world premiere of God shall wipe away all tears by Stephen Shewan (Albany TROY349).
Buck Ross is an associate professor at the University of Houston and the director of the Edythe Bates Old Moores Opera Center, where he has directed productions of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, Kurt Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes and Conrad Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons.
For many years he was the director of the apprentice program for the Des Moines Metro Opera and the Director of Dramatic Studies for the Houston Opera Studio. He has directed opera productions nationwide for many regional companies and is also the author of English singing versions of Don Pasquale, La finta giardiniera, and Orpheus in the Underworld.
Charles Hausmann is a professor of music at the University of Houston and has served as Director of Choral Studies at the Moores School of Music since 1985, where he conducts the major choral organizations, teaches conducting, and supervises the master's and doctoral programs in choral conducting. In addition, Hausmann has served as director of the Houston Symphony Chorus since 1986. He is co-author of a textbook on choral music, published by Silver Burdett and Ginn, and has written for several music journals.
Débria Brown, mezzo-soprano, enjoys an international operatic career spanning four continents and over 40 roles, including regular appearances with orchestras and at music festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has worked with diverse music directors, including James Levine, George Solti and Herbert von Karajan and has sung in world premieres of operas by Ligeti, Floyd, Ward and Carlson. Her many awards include that of the Amistad Arts Committee and Rheinhardt Seminar in Vienna, and a Citation for Artistic Contribution from the U.S. Congress.
In addition to her operatic activities, Brown is also a dramatic actress for stage, film, and television in the English and German languages. She is currently associate professor of voice at the Moores School of Music.
Joseph Evans has appeared as a leading tenor in numerous opera houses in Europe. In the United States, he has sung leading tenor roles during eight seasons with the New York City Opera, as well as guest appearances with major American companies including the Houston Grand Opera, and the San Diego, Pittsburgh, Palm Beach, Boston, and Cleveland operas. His concert appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, orchestras of Atlanta, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, the Orchestre L'Ile de France in Paris and the German Symphony of Berlin.
Evans has recorded for the Sony Classics, CBS Masterworks, Cybelia and Gasparo labels. He is currently associate professor of voice at the Moores School of Music.
Richard Paul Fink, bass-baritone, is an alumnus of the Houston Opera Studio and has made numerous appearances with the Houston Grand Opera. Among his international appearances are those at the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Welsh National Opera, the New Israeli Opera, the Canadian Opera, Scottish Opera, and Australian Opera. He has performed with Plácido Domingo for the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine.
Claudia Waite, soprano, was seen by a world-wide audience as a featured soloist at the Opening Ceremonies of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. A former Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera, her many credits include Des Moines Metro Opera, Internationaal Opera Centrum in Amsterdam, Opera de Lyon of France, San Francisco Symphony, the Ravenna Festival in Italy, and the Metropolitan Opera.
In 1999 Waite returned to the roster of the Met, as well as having made her debut with Opera Orchestra New York, Dallas Opera, New Israeli Opera, and the Savonlinna Festival in Finland.
Justin White, baritone, has performed leading roles for many major opera companies in the United States and abroad. His favorite roles have included Marcello in La boheme, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Silvio in I pagliacci, and Sid in Albert Herring. White received his Master of Music in vocal performance from the University of Houston in 1993 and is currently a member of the voice faculty of the Moores School of Music.
Elizabeth Wiles, soprano, received her Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from the University of Houston. While there, she performed a number of leading roles with the Moores Opera Center. In 1997, she was an apprentice at both the Sarasota Opera and the San Francisco Opera. She also performed with Western Opera Theater's 1997 national tour of Bizet's Carmen.
Symphonic Scenes from A Room with a View and Two Spirituals were recorded in the Moores Opera House, University of Houston. A Nywe Werk is Come on Honde was recorded in Grace Presbyterian Church, Houston.
Location recording engineers: Suzy Wager and John Proffitt • Digital editing, post production and mastering: John Proffitt. This recording is a co-production of KUHF-FM Radio, Houston and the University of Houston Moores School of Music.
In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
(On the street and in the Church of Santa Croce)
This is the real Italia. Magnificent! We shall have an adventure!
(Lucy looks in her guidebook)
Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker. Ah, a smell! A true Florentine smell!
Every city, let me teach you, has its own smell.
One doesn't come to Italy for niceness. One comes for life! Two lone females in an unknown town! And no, you are not to look at your Baedeker.
Give it to me. We shall simply drift.
(George and Mr. Emerson walk by)
Stop a minute; let those two people go on. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! The Britisher abroad!
They have given us their rooms. They were so very kind.
Look! They walk through my Italy like a pair of cows. Oh, there's that divine Signor Badenchini! I must have a word with him!
(Miss Lavish runs off. Lucy finds herself alone and wanders around the church. She encounters Mr. Emerson and his son George. He stays behind to look at a fresco. Mr. Emerson and Lucy stroll to another part of the church.)
Why will he look at that fresco? I saw nothing in it.
I like the Giotto. Though I like the Della Robia babies better.
So you ought. A baby is worth a dozen saints. My baby is worth all of paradise, but he lives in hell.
How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? And think how he has been brought up — free from superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God.
Now don't be stupid over this. I don't require you to fall in love with my boy, but I do think you should try to understand him. If you let yourself go, I am sure you will be sensible. You might help me. But let yourself go. You are inclined to get muddled. Let yourself go, pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. I only know what it is that's wrong with him not why it is.
The old trouble. Things won't fit.
The things of the universe.
Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?
Make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes.
I'm very sorry. You'll think me unfeeling... But...but...your son wants employment. Has he no hobbies? I forget my worries at the piano and collecting stamps did no end of good for my brother...
(returning and interrupting)
Oh, goodness gracious me! Where? Where?
I see. Those gossiping Miss Alans must have...
Poor girl? Pray don't waste any time mourning over me. There's enough sorrow in the world without inventing it. Goodbye. Thank you so much for your kindness.
(The Reverend Arthur Beebe, The Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett and Miss Lucy Honeychurch drive out in carriages to see a view.
There are two carriages. The first has, in the back seat, Mr. Eager and Mr. Emerson. In the middle seat, Miss Lavish and Lucy. The front seat has an Italian driver.
The other carriage has George Emerson and Charlotte in the back seat. Mr. Beebe in the middle seat and a driver in the front.
Mr. Emerson has fallen asleep against Mr. Eager.
The first carriage stops and picks up a rather dubious looking beautiful woman who is all too familiar with the driver.)
Driver, driver! Chi e la donna?
(Mr. Eager and the entire party are subject to displays of affection between the driver and the woman throughout the scene.)
So, Miss Honeychurch, you are traveling as a student of art?
Oh, no. I'm here as a tourist.
We residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little.
Va bene, signore, va bene.
(The driver whips the horses up to a very fast speed. The renewed jolting throws the sleeping Mr. Emerson repeatedly against Mr. Eager.)
(The driver kisses the woman, the carriage jolts violently. Mr. Emerson wakes.)
On no account should we separate them!
I would let them be. But I have always flown in the face of convention. This is what I call an adventure!
We must not submit. He's treating us like tourists!
Leave them alone. Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers — a king might envy us!
(The woman gets down off the carriage)
It is not a victory. It is defeat. You have parted two people who were happy.
(They start driving again. They seem to be jolted even more.)
Have you ever heard of Lorenzo de Medici?
Most certainly. Which one?
The poet. He wrote: “Don't go fighting against the Spring”
“Non fate guerra al Maggio.” “War not with the May” would render the correct meaning.
The point is we have warred with it. Do you suppose there is any difference between Spring in nature and Spring in man? But there we go, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.
(The carriages stop. All get out)
The view is best over this way.
(The men exit. The women stay behind by one carriage. The drivers talk to each other quietly by the other.)
(Lucy reluctantly goes to the drivers)
Dove?... Dove buoni uomini?
The driver and Lucy look for the men. They come upon a field of violets. The driver picks some and hands them to her. She accepts them graciously.)
(She hears voices behind her)
(She turns and there is George Emerson. He steps forward quickly and kisses her.)
(The silence of life is broken by Miss Bartlett who stands brown against the view)
(Charlotte and Lucy are in Lucy's room. There is a large window. It is raining. Night. Lucy is at the window.)
It has been raining for nearly four hours.
How do you propose to silence him?
I have met the type before. They rarely keep their exploits to themselves.
My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? I'm no prude but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. What do you propose to do?
I propose to speak to him.
It is my affair. Mine and his.
But are you going to implore him beg him to keep silent?
Certainly not. I have been frightened of him but I am not now.
But we fear for you, dear. If I had not arrived what would have happened?
What would have happened?
When he insulted you how would you have replied?
I hadn't time to think. You came.
Yes, but what would you have done.
Come away from the window, you will be seen from the road. Oh, for a real man. Mr. Beebe is hopeless, and you do not trust Mr. Eager. Oh, for your brother. He is young, but I know that his sister's insult would rouse in him the very lion. Thank God chivalry is not dead. There are still some men left who reverence women. It will be a push to catch the morning train but we must try.
(Charlotte goes to her room. Lucy puts out her candle.)
He gave me his room that he said had a view but I can't see anything, anything but two old women slinking off before dawn. Two old maids with their trunks filled with books and their hearts filled with nothing. No. I must tell him I don't care for his common, brutish ways. I must tell him I don't care. I must tell him he was wrong.
No...that Charlotte was wrong! ...that I am wrong...
I must tell him that he has misestimated me. That he doesn't know the sort of woman with whom he is dealing...and neither do I.
This room has four walls but no windows. This room has a door that goes nowhere. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, it wasn't supposed to be like this. If this is love I don't want it. If this is hell I believe it. And I still can't see anything...anything... in the dark.
(The garden terrace of Windy Corner. Cecil has picked up a library book Lucy has been reading. George has just returned from playing tennis.)
I say, listen to this, Lucy. Three split infinitives. There's even a murder scene. Listen to this...
What fun, Cecil. Read away. Sit down, Mr. Emerson, after all your energy.
“The scene is laid in Florence. Sunset. Leonora was speeding...”
Leonora. Is Leonora the heroine? Who's the book by?
Joseph Emery Prank. “Sunset. Leonora was speeding across the promenade by the river Arno. Pray the saints she might not arrive too late. Sunset —the sunset of Italy...”
Joseph Emery Prank indeed! Why it's Miss Lavish's novel, and she's publishing it under somebody else's name.
Oh, a dreadful person. Mr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish?
No wonder the novel's bad.
All modern books are bad.
(There is an awkward pause)
How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson?
My father says that there is only one perfect view— the view of the sky over our heads. And that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of it.
I shall enjoy hearing your father talk again. I'm sorry he's not well.
There's an absurd account of a view in this book.
(Yawning, handing the book to Lucy)
Find me chapter two, if it isn't bothering you.
(Lucy opens the book and is stunned by the opening sentences.)
It isn't worth reading. It's too silly to read... I never read such rubbish...
(Cecil takes the book from her)
“Leonora sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich champaign of Tuscany. The season was Spring. A golden haze. Afar off the towers of Florence, ehile the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All unobserved, Antonio stole up behind her...
“There came from his lips no wordy protestations such as formal lovers use. He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.”
This isn't the passage I wanted. There is another, much funnier, further on.
Oh, let's. This is tiresome.
(He exits quickly, leaving them behind)
I can't have it, Mr. Emerson. Go out of this house, and never come into it again!
Go, please. I don't want to call in Mr. Vyse.
You don't mean that you are going to marry that man?
You are merely ridiculous.
You cannot live with him. He should know no one intimately, least of all a woman. Have you ever talked to him without felling tired?
No, but have you ever? He is the sort who is all right when it comes to things — books, pictures — but kill when it comes to people. I'm not ashamed. I don't apologize. You may not have noticed that I love you — surely in a better way than he does. Lucy, be quick —
There's no time for us to talk now — come to me as you came in the spring. I cannot live without you. I meet you again when all the world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the wood I saw that nothing else mattered. I wanted to live and have my chance of joy.
Does it matter that I love Cecil and shall be his wife?
(George stretches out his arms to her)
It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can.
You wouldn't stop us this second time if you understood. I have been into the dark, and I am going back into it, unless you try to understand.
I seem to bring misfortune wherever I go. Eleanor betrayed my confidence but I betrayed Lucy's. I shall never forgive myself. Oh, Lucy, I admire you so. You're unlike the girls of my day. They could not choose. You can choose, Lucy. You can choose. I could not. I wasn't brave enough. I wasn't strong enough to make the right decision.
(the following is sung as a trio)
He is nothing to me. He never was anything to me. Then why is this so hard? He behaved abominably. I never encouraged him. Then why is he still here in my house, and in my heart? Oh, Mr. Emerson this can never be. I cannot explain it. Don't ask me to explain it. This can never be. I am engaged. I cannot have this. I promised I'd marry Cecil. I promised I'd love Cecil. And I will love him. In time. In time. In time.
Love felt and returned. Love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet. You think it is the enemy. You try to stifle it. But you can't, Lucy. You can't. Lucy, don't turn away. Not now when I need you. He doesn't need you. Not like I do. Lucy, don't turn away. Trust my heart, trust yours. He doesn't trust you. Not like I do. Lucy, don't turn away. Not when I finally know what love is. And I know he doesn't love you. Not like I do. Not like I do.
Oh, Lucy, be brave. Do what you ought to do. Do the right thing, I beg you. I know. I know. You may not think so but I know. I admire you so. You're unlike the girls of my day. They could not choose. You can choose, Lucy. You can choose. I could not. I wasn't brave enough. I wasn't strong enough. Make the right decision. I know. I know. I know.
(On one side of the stage is a carriage with Lucy and Mrs. Honeychurch and a driver. On the other is Mr. Beebe's study occupied by Mr. Emerson and Charlotte Bartlett. The lights are only on the carriage at the beginning.)
Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?
(Tears come into her eyes)
I've seen so little of life. I might share a flat in London with some girl.
And mess with typewriters and latchkeys! And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And call it a Mission when nobody wants you. And call it Duty when it means you can't stand your own home! And call it Work when thousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then to prepare yourself, find two doddering old maids and go abroad with them.
Oh, how you remind me of Charlotte Bartlett!
Charlotte?!? I don't know what you mean. Charlotte and I are not in the least alike.
Well, I see the likeness.
(Silence. Lights up on Charlotte looking at Mr. Emerson in Mr. Beebe's study.)
Why does Charlotte need to visit Mr. Beebe's old mother anyway?
Lucy, she is our guest, and it's not out of our way.
(They pass by the Emerson's house)
Is the Emerson's house to let again, Powell?
Yes, miss. They have gone.
(They arrive at the rectory. Charlotte comes outside to greet them.)
Would it be troubling you to wait for me for ten minutes while I go to church?
Oh, let's all go. It will do us some good. Powell, take the carriage round to the stables.
No church for me, thank you.
Why don't you wait in Mr. Beebe's study. There's a fire there.
(Charlotte and Mrs. Honeychurch go inside the church. Lucy enters the rectory and Mr. Beebe's study.)
Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!
(Lucy had not planned on this.)
George is so sorry. He thought he had a right to try. But you must not scold him.
(Lucy turns her back and looks at the books.)
I taught him to trust in love. I said, “When love comes, that is reality. Passion does not blind. No, passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.” Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?
I have no wish to discuss Italy or any subject connected with your son.
He has behaved abominably.
Not abominably. Do not go out of George's life saying that he is abominable.
I'm sorry. I think I will go to church after all...
Especially as he has gone under. As his mother did.
But, Mr. Emerson, what are you talking about?
When I wouldn't have George baptized. He caught typhoid when he was twelve and Mr. Eager made her think it was a judgement. So she went under thinking about it.
He was not baptized. I did hold firm. My boy shall go back to the earth untouched.
He is never ill. Just gone under. He will live but he will not think it worth while to live. He comes tomorrow to take me to London. He can't bear to be here and I must be where he is.
Mr. Emerson, don't leave. Not on my account. I am going to Greece. You must stop. I am going to Greece.
Greece. Greece. But you were to be married this year.
I hope that you enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse.
Oh, good. I counted on you two keeping each other company. It's pouring rain again. Our mothers and the others are waiting for the carriage. Did the driver go round?
No, I'll do it. Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece? Miss Honeychurch and the two Miss Alans traveling alone. Very courageous.
Mr. Vyse is not going. I made a slip.
You are leaving him? You are leaving the man you love?
Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?
My dear, I'm worried about you. It seems you are in a muddle. It is easy to face Death and Fate. It is on my muddles that I look back in horror. Life is like a public performance on a violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along. Man has to pick up the use of his functions as he goes along. Especially the function of love. That's it! You love George!
(The three words burst upon Lucy like waves from the open sea.)
But you do! You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you. You won't marry the other man for his sake.
How dare you! How like a man. To suppose that a woman is always thinking about a man.
But you are. Be his wife. Though you fly to Greece, and never see him again, George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love. Marry him. It is one of the moments for which the world was made.
You've frightened me. They trusted me...
But why should they, when you have deceived them?
Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed. I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear, if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. We fight for more than Love or Pleasure.
There is Truth. Truth counts, truth does count.
You kiss me. You kiss me and I will try.
The End of the Middle Ages
(Lucy's old room at the Pension Bertolini. Lucy and George are sitting in the open window looking out at the view. Lucy is reading a letter.)
This must be my old room.
No it isn't. Because it's the room I had. I had your father's room. Charlotte made me… for some reason.
Anything good in Freddy's letter?
Signorino, domani faremo un giro...
Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati.
Is it possible? I'll put a marvel to you. That your cousin always hoped. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she hoped. Look how she kept me alive in you all summer. The sight of us haunted her. There are details in the novel — it burnt. She is not frozen, Lucy, she is not withered up. She tore us apart twice, but in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us happy. I do believe that far below her speech and behavior she is glad.
It is impossible. No — it is just possible.
(“Youth enwrapped them: The song of Phaeton announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean.”)
A Nyw Werk is Come on Honde
I. A Nyw Werk is Come on Honde (Anonymous)
A nywe werk is come on honde
Through might and grace of Godys son
To save the lost of every land
For now is free that erst was bond
We mowe wel sing Alleluia
Right as the sun shone through the glass
Jesu Christ conceived was
Of Mary Moder ful of grace
Now sing we here Alleluia
Out of the grene branch it sprung
God send us the life that lasteth long
Nowe joye and blesse be hem among
That thus can sing Alleluia
II. Recitative (Isaiah 52:1; 51:6; 52:8)
Put on your strength, Oh Zion.
Lift up your eyes to the heavens.
Hark! Your watchmen lift up their voice.
Together they sing for joy!
III. No La Devemos Dormir (Fray Ambrosio Montesino, c. 1450-1514)
¿La Virgen à solas piensa
Quando al rey de luz immenso
IV. Recitative (Luke 2:15)
The shepherds said to one another:
Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. And they went with haste and found the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying which had been told them concerning the child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.
V. Sweet Was the Song (Anonymous)
Sweet was the song the virgin sung
When she to Bethlehem was come,
And was delivered of her son,
That blessed Jesus hath to name.
“Lullaby, lullaby sweet Babe,” quoth she,
“My Son and eke a Savior born,
Who hath vouchsafed from on high
To visit us that were forlorn.”
“Lulla, lulla, lullaby sweet Babe,” sung she,
And sweetly rocked Him on her knee.
VI. Recitative (Isaiah 53:1)
Who has believed what we have heard? For he grew up before him like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or comeliness that we should look on Him. And no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hid their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
VI. An Hymn (Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650)
Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,
Which brought from heav'n the news and Prince of Peace:
Cease not, wet eyes, His mercies to intreat;
To cry for vengeance sin doth never cease:
In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;
Nor let His eye see sin, but through my tears.
VII. Gloria Tibi Domine (Anonymous)
A little child ther is ybore
Yspronge out of Jesse's more
To save us all that were forlore
Jesus that is so full of might
Ybore He was about mydnight
The angel's song with all here might
Three kyngs ther came with here presence
Of myrre and gold and frankensence
As clerkes sing in here sequence
Now sette we downe upon oure knee
Ande pray that childe that is so free
Ande with good heart now sing we
A new work is come on hand,
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