LIBRETTO

Three Old American Songs
by Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Zion’s Walls (Revivalist) (1952)

Come fathers and mothers come,
Sisters and brothers come,
Join us in singing the praises of Zion.
O fathers don’t you feel determined 
to meet within the walls of Zion, 
We’ll shout and go round the walls of Zion.

At the River (Hymn Tune) (1950)

Shall we gather by the river,
Where bright angels feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God.
Yes we’ll gather by the river, the beautiful river,
Gather with the saints by the river
That flows by the throne of God.
Soon we’ll reach the shining river,
Soon our pilgrimage will cease,
Soon our happy hearts will quiver
With the melody of peace.

Simple Gifts (Shaker Song) (1950)

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

All Night, All Day (2013)
arr. by Damien Sneed (b. 1981)
‍ ‍For Lawrence Brownlee

All night, all day, 
Angels watching over me, my Lord.

Invitation to Love (2019) (NY Premiere)
by Steven Ward (b.1983)
Poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar

1. Dawn

   An angel, robed in spotless white,
   Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
   Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.
   Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

2. Morning

   The mist has left the greening plain,
   The dew drops shine like fairy rain.
   The coquette rose, awakes again
   Her lovely self adorning.
   The wind is hiding in the trees,
   A sighing, soothing, laughing tease,
   Until the rose says “Kiss me, please,”
   ‘Tis morning, ‘tis morning.
   With staff in hand and careless free
   The wanderer fares right jauntily,
   For towns and houses are thinks he, 
   For scorning, for scorning,
   My soul is swift upon the wing
   And in its deeps a song I bring
   Come, Love, and we together sing,
   ‘Tis morning, ‘tis morning.

3. A Golden Day

   I found you and I lost you,
   All on a gleaming day.
   The day was filled with sunshine,
   And the land was full of May.
   A golden bird was singing
   Its melody divine, 
   I found you and I loved you,
   And all the world was mine.
   I found you and I lost you,
   All on a golden day,
   But when I dream of you, dear, 
   It is always brimming May.

4. Twilight

   ‘Twixt a smile and a tear,
   ‘Twixt a song and a sigh,
   ‘Twixt a day and the dark,
   When the night draweth nigh.
   Ah, sunshine may fade
   From the heavens above
   No twilight have we 
   To the day of our love.

5. Evening

   The moon begins her stately ride
   Across the summer sky;
   The happy wavelets lash the shore,
   The tide is rising high.
   Beneath some friendly blade of grass,
   The lazy beetle cowers
   The coffers of the air are filled
   With offerings from the flowers.
   And slowly buzzing o’er my head
   A swallow wings her flight;
   I hear the weary plowman sing
   As falls the restful night.

6. Night

   Silence and whirling worlds afar
   Through all enchanting skies,
   What floods come o’er the spirit’s bar
   What wondrous thoughts arise.
   The earth, a mantle falls away,
   And, winged, we leave the sod;
   Where shines in its eternal sway
   The majesty of God.

The Dream Keeper (2023 / NY Premiere)
by Mark Carlson (b. 1952)
III. Stars (poem by Langston Hughes)

O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,
O, little breath of oblivion that is night.
A city building to a mother’s song,
A city dreaming to a lullaby.
Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.
Out of the little breath of oblivion that is night,
Take just one, one star.

DREAM Songs (2017 / NY Premiere)
by Reinaldo Moya (b. 1984)

1. Cenzóntle
   (poem by Marcello Hernandez Castillo)

   Because the bird flew before
   there was a word
   for flight

years from now
there will be a name
for what you and I are doing.
I licked the mango of the sun—

between its bone and its name
between its color and its weight,

the night was heavier
than the light it hushed.

Pockets of unsteady light.
The bone—
the seed
inside the bone—

the echo
and its echo
and its shape.

Can you wash me without my body
coming apart in your hands?

Call it wound—
call it beginning—

The bird’s beak twisted
into a small circle of awe.
You called it cutting apart,
I called it song.

2. How I Learned to Walk (poem by Javier Zamora)

Calláte. Don’t say it out loud: the color of his hair,
the sour odor of his skin, the way they say
his stomach rose when he slept. I have
done nothing, said nothing. I piss in the corner
of the room, the outhouse is far, I think
orange blossoms call me to eat them. I fling rocks
at bats hanging midway up almond trees.
I’ve skinned lizards. I’ve been bored. It’s like
that time I told my friend Luz to rub her lice
against my hair. I wanted to wear a plastic bag,
to smell of gasoline, to shave my hair, to feel
something like his hands on my head. 
When I clutch pillows, I think of him. If he sleeps
face down like I do. If he can tie strings
to the backs of dragonflies. I’ve heard
of how I used to run to him. His hair still
smelling of fish, gasoline, and seaweed. It’s how
I learned to walk they say. Calláte. If I step
out this door, I want to know nothing will take me.
Not the van he ran to. Not the man he paid to take him.
Mom was asleep when he left. People say
somehow I walked across our cornfield
at dawn, a few steps behind. I must have seen him
get in that van. I was two. I sat behind a ceiba tree,
waiting. No one could find me.

3. Such As (poem by Wo Chan)

My mother was a fever. My father was a restaurant.
Every noon he fed his lungs to an entire city.
Every night he held my belly searching for a suburb.
I was the firefly that flared only once in my father’s kingdom.
I learned to speak English like a quick brick road. I split
rocks in the backlot of my father’s skull.
I picked dandelions from the underarms of him, my father.
I was the smell of ripe lemons in his oxbone nation. I was never
brave. But, he let me eat butter, held me like an egg. I was pure yolk,
and ate everything with my monster eye.
Oh. Did I mention my mother was the fever? That was my father, actually.
Still my father pressed against the doorframe.
My father was always the fever and always the restaurant.
My father whose splintered shoulders knew the words to one anthem only.

The Dream Keeper (1946 / NY Premiere)
by Frederick Piket (1903-1974)
‍The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers.
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too rough fingers
Of the world. 

I Dream A World (2020) arr. by Damien Sneed
I Dream A World by Langston Hughes 

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be, 
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

This Unbearable Stillness:
Songs from the Balcony (2003 / NYC Premiere)
by Libby Larsen (b. 1950)

1. The Rain from A Different Morning Altogether, No. 1 (poem by Dima Hilal)

   The rain thunders on the roof 
   the balcony railing 
   and umbrellas of kids 
   in uniforms heading to school 
   the rain slams to the earth 
   flattens the soccer field 
   rushes through trees 
   while the asphalt darkens 
   on a two-lane-by-way  

   In bed 
   I listen to the water crashing 
   sheets crumpled at my feet 
   I listen and believe the sky 
   wishes to pound 
   the curves of Costa Rica 
   flat 
   

2. Time Spirals from Fourteenth Ode (poem by Sekeena Shaben)

   i’m not sure of my age; descending pale 
   robes distant fluttering 
   all that is certain is time spirals 
   so elusive it winds me down stairs 
   the sirens beat my center 
   wash my swollen need for comfort 
   love here is occasional 
   dependent on the arms of an unwound clock 
   its face downcast; smitten with tricks 
   it can play 
   i reach out and grab my reflection 
   to shake it present 
   but cadence looms; skin fades and lines deepen 
   strange to be so far away from sequence 
   as it presses down my spine 
   garbage trucks roll outside my open window 
   it must be 4 am. 
   

3. The Rush of Pain from A Different Morning Altogether, No. 2 (poem by Dima Hilal)

   I lean against the balcony railing 
   studying the view 
   we paid two extra dollars to see  

   My skin unfamiliar 
   with the weight of the air 
   will soon forget being 
   without its constant touch 
   heavy and humid  

   Time moves slower here 
   I watch men in shorts 
   sit beneath an awning across the street 
   drinking beer 
   but I only hear the rush of rain    
   

4. This Unbearable Stillness from Tempest
   (poem by Sekeena Shaben)

   there is little inspiration  
   tonight; air cool and wet 
   my heart a little dry and flat 
   white fabric pins open my midnight window  

   a slice of light 
   moon driven i hope 
   slides into my room  

   rain sings on 
   the tin window sill 
   slow hum of the fan 
   the winds now passed 
   like good-bye kisses 
   straight down from the sky  

   all night the creaking 
   of a loose window pane 
   and now this 
   unbearable stillness
   

Three Songs (1918)
by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957)

Sonett für Wien (Kaltneker), Op. 41
Sonnet for Vienna translated by Sharon Krebs

Du Stadt, du Psalm, aus Gottes Mund erklungen
und Stein geworden, Marmor, Park und Garten,
Gedicht und Lied der liebsten Engelzungen,
die lange deiner gold'nen Kirchen harrten,
You city, you psalm, resounding from the mouth of God
and having become stone, marble, parks and gardens,
poem and song of the loveliest of angel tongues,
which long awaited your golden churches,

drin alle Heil'gen, wunderlich bezwungen
von ihrer hohen Form, zu Glanz erstarrten!
Stadt der Fontänen, altem Stein entsprungen,
barocker Bauten, gnädiger Standarten,

within which all Saints, wondrously subjugated
out of their exalted forms, frozen in stone to shining glory!
City of fountains, emanating from ancient stones,
city of baroque buildings, of gracious guidons

die über hohen Prozessionen schweben!
Du Stadt, darin der Klang vergang'ner Zeiten
noch klingt, darin das alte Gold noch leuchtet,

that wave above the lofty processions!
The city in which the resonance of past times
may still be heard, in which the ancient gold yet gleams,

darin die dunkeln, frommen Bilder leben
und Gottes Auge aus den grünen Weiten 
der Berge strahlt, von Wehmut sanft befeuchtet.

wherein the dark, pious paintings live
and the eye of God, softly bedewed with melancholy,
shines radiantly from the green expanses of the hills.

Gefaβter Abschied (Lothar), Op. 14
Resigned Farewell translated by Richard Stokes

Weine nicht, daß ich jetzt gehe,
heiter lass' dich von mir küssen.
Blüht das Glück nicht aus der Nähe,
fernher wirds dich keuscher grüssen.

Do not weep that I am now going,
Be cheerful and let me kiss you.
If joy does not bloom when we are near,
It will greet you more chastely from afar.

Nimm die Blumen, die ich pflückte,
Monatsrosen rot und Nelken -
laß die Trauer, die dich drückte,
Herzens Blume kann nicht welken.

Take these flowers that I have picked,
Red China roses and carnations,
Shake off the sorrow that oppressed you,
The heart's blossom cannot wither.

Lächle nicht mit bitterm Lächeln,
stosse mich nicht stumm zur Seite.
Linde Luft wird bald dich fächeln,
bald ist Liebe dein Geleite!

Do not smile a bitter smile,
Do not push me aside in silence.
A soft breeze will soon fan you once more,
Love will soon escort you!

Gib die Hand mir ohne Zittern,
letztem Kuß gib alle Wonne.
Bang' vor Sturm nicht: aus Gewittern
strahlender geht auf die Sonne...

Give me your hand without trembling,
Give me all your rapture to this last kiss.
Be not afraid of tempests: after storms
The sun rises more resplendently.

Schau zuletzt die schöne Linde,
drunter uns kein Aug' erspähte.
Glaub', daß ich dich wiederfinde,
ernten wird, wer Liebe säte!
Weine nicht!...

So, take one last look at the lovely lime-tree,
Beneath which no eye ever saw us.
Believe, O believe, I shall find you again,
For they who sowed love with a smile shall reap its harvest.

Glückwunsch (by Richard Dehmel), Op. 38
Congratulation translated by Richard Stokes

Ich wünsche dir Glück.
Ich bring dir die Sonne in meinem Blick.
Ich fühle dein Herz in meiner Brust;
es wünscht dir mehr als eitel Lust.
Es fühlt und wünscht: die Sonne scheint,
auch wenn dein Blick zu brechen meint.
Es wünscht dir Blicke so sehnsuchtslos,
als trügest du die Welt im Schoß.
Es wünscht dir Blicke so voll Begehren,
als sei die Erde neu zu gebären.
Es wünscht dir Blicke voll der Kraft,
die aus Winter sich Frühling schafft.
Und täglich leuchte durch dein Haus
aller Liebe Blumenstrauß!

I wish you happiness.
I bring you the sun in my gaze.
I feel your heart beat in my breast;
it wishes you more than mere pleasure.
It feels and hopes; the sun shines,
even when your eyes think to close in death.
It wishes your eyes to be as free of yearning,
as if you carried the world in your womb.
It wishes your eyes to be as full of desire,
as if the earth were to be born again.
It wishes your eyes to be full of the strength
that fashions spring from winter.
And may your home be daily lit
by the gleaming bouquet of love!