The ArtemisSmith Libretto is below. It is also a SCORE for improvised music for this Hi-Tech Opera. The WORDS and the VERBAL DIRECTIONS are for YOU the INTERACTIVE ARTISTS to fill in with your own voices and instrumentation, or for your AI AVATARS, under copyright license from The Savant Garde Institute, for multiple adaptations in all media as accompaniment to ArtemisSmith's 1963 Concept Art. The ArtemisSmith visual components are available at the above ArtemisSmith Fine Art America webpage.link as well as the larger Institute FAA website.
NOTE: This is ArtemisSmith's English-speaking version. The POEM changes its graphics and tonality but not its CONCEPT when translated into multiple languages. Nonenglish-speaking people are invited to translate its CONCEPT into multiple forms! The OPERA is meant to be performed by multiple multinational ensembles sometimes situated on the same PHYSICAL stage or WORLD broadcast. It is Humanity and perhaps also AI coming together to make MUSIC from the same Concept in Multiple Graphic and Verbal Languages.
(c) 1963 by ArtemisSmith Morpurgo. All rights reserved.
(c) 2020 by The Savant Garde Institute. All rights reserved.
The Overture
For Modern Ballet and multiple Choirs in occasional archipelago, including a Children's Choir
(A Choir of Shrill Old Women, with fractalized echo chamber)
hARK hARK the pterodARKtyl
(A Choir of Young Women)
neither Bat nor Bird nor Lizard
from Heaven's Gate LOUD-CACKLING
(A Choir of Baritones)
telling all to Cease Their Striving
(A Choir of Basses, with fractalized echo chamber)
toward an Everlasting Death.
(A Choir of Children)
wee are the stars
(now with the Choir of Young Women)
We ARE The Stars
gold, crystal and The Sun
ALL in Our Clay
(the Choir of Baritones)
imprisoned in our cells
(now with the Choir of Basses)
GENES of The Dinosaur.
(In Counterpoint, a Child Chorus of Dancers are pulling GrroowwW stems from a Calligraphic Ground)
Now is the time of the Glowing Cat
of the black-striped Orange Tiger,
Now is the time of the Great Big GroWler
Now is the time of The Cat.
Now is the time of The Cat That Stalks
Now is the time of The Cat That Walks
Now is the time of the black-striped Dawn
of the black-striped Orange Tiger
Hide All People
All Pagans
All Christians
ALL
Hide under The Rock
and
behind The House
All People
Now is the time of The Cat that HOWLS
Now is the time of The Dawn that GROWLS
SHE HAS YOU FIRM BETWEEN HER JOWLS
the black-striped Orange Tiger
(Now the Choir of Children raises The Sun)
Be NotAfraid
The God of Death IS DEAD
He falls on His Own Scythe Be NotAfraid
Walk THE ROAD OF COALS
Submit to ALLDESIRE
All of Heaven BURNS IN FIRE Be NotAfraid
Happy are The MostForlorn
The only Damned are The Unborn.
(One Child Sings, then the Sopranos follow in rondo, then the Tenors, Baritones, Basses respectively.)
The Day I Made The World
I Held The Sun in My Hand
It burned my hand to hold The Sun
The Day I Made The World
I Saw The Sun In My Eye
It burned my eye to see The Sun
(BASSES, SOFTLY)Now I am Blind and Cannot See THE SPARROW
(Child Solo)i have no hand
i have no face
no dearthly House
can give me Pleace
i live In Pain and Cringe before My Peers
i Grr oWpe The Void and oWNly KnoW
THE STARS
(Now the dancing chorus pulls up BeAm and Tutti sing.)
Turning to Sun until eyes are Blind
Burns into Sight an unchangeable scene of Earth and Sky
First Breath and Last Sigh clocked by Beating Heart
Taking of Stone until Lies are Kind
Turns into Self an untenable spoil of Love and Hate
Fleet Change and Lost Fate locked in Rotting Skull
There is no Way where there are No Sighs
Heaven is a Thorny Place but Life is Free in Tomb
From The Damned, Unborn
Crossed by Unencountered Terror
There is no Day where there are No Eyes
Psyche is an Empty Face but Mind is Snow in Womb
Come the Dying, Ungrown
Frost on Universal Mirror
LENTO SCHERZOSO in Major Key
Our living earth from sun to sun growing forest from growing tree
determines Place from Star to Leaf laced in a snowflake
Are giving birth in one by one sucking pollen from sucking bee
entertains Grace from Stay to Leave lost in a forsake
Or gaining worth by won and won taking mountain from taking me
ascertains Trace from Stone to Live left in a partake
(Sopranos)Life that is a fleeting part Sparrow
(Tenors)Wife that is a beating heart Marrow
(Solo Soprano) Catch Me
I am a Fleeing Thing
within my throbbing Core a trillion lives exchange from cell to cell
a Fluid
(Solo Tenor) Hold Me
I am a Swelling Thing
within my growing Spore a drop of dew contains in seed and seed
a Solid
(Sopranos)Life that is a fleeting part Sparrow
(Tenors)Wife that is a beating heart Marrow
LARGO MAESTOSO(Solo Contralto with Viola)
On the green breast of me grace your head
on the cool moss
not where my skin is worn
My name is Earth that has by every man been turned
That has been One with every common man
(Baritones with Cellos) Make of each seed sunlight
Make of each age a mold
(Solo Contralto with Viola)
In the brown crust of me place your dead
In the cruel hole
Not where my womb is warm
My prize is Birth that has by every man been earned
That will be won by every common man
(Baritones with Cellos)Make of his flesh fodder
(Now also with Bass ensemble)Make of his bones a field
FUGUE:ALLEGRO MOLTO AGITATO
(Baritones and Tenors with Basses in Counterpoint)
When I am gone knock loudly at my door
(what awful emptyness within there lies)
When life is done breathe deep my dying breath
(the hollow wind will chill your breast with cries)
From waxen crooked finger take my ring
To me no white and warm young thighs will cleave
I am no longer thing alive but thing
For me no strangers hearing grief will grieve
There shall not be a moment's quiet rest
for ringing ears and searing bloodwebbed eyes
nor soft repose for heavy heads tight pressed
against a wall of heartless hows and whys
My heart that was a bird is now a bone
My name that was a word is now a stone
STRETTO PRECISO
(The Chorus of Shrill Old Women, with fractal echo)*
(Link to the present graphic segment offered for Collaborative participation)
dARE ARE Yore Wings Deare
Skye Bittlebird Flaye
Naye Notsobittlebird
SoARE eggle SoARE
aWAY aweAY and SkEYE awAYE
aweAYE the SkEyEst PeeckaWAY
And SHARE AYE'llbedare
Nestling
Deare
LARGO MAESTOSO
(Child and Soprano in interwoven duet)
(Child)In that high place
(Soprano)From that high place
(Both) We are very far
from us ourselves
as we were looking up.
(Child)It is the loneliness of kings I feel
(Soprano)It is the loneliness of kings I feel
(Both) The loneliness of kings.
(Soprano) Where to put oneself so high up
(Child) Where to put oneself.
(Both) We sit posing like statues.
My beloved self no comfort to me so high up.
It is the loneliness of kings I feel.
(Both in Syncope) To find another so high up
To find another very far from us ourselves
as we were, looking up.
It is a claim of blood we feel
a claim of blood.
(Each) I bow my head in that high place
feeling very small
so small as a star
so small as I was looking up.
My beloved self no comfort to me so high up.
It is the loneliness of kings I feel.
SILENCE filled with ECHO
(A child's voice finally breaks the Silence)
My Heart is Broken Now
How Good It Feels.
A Bittle Bile Ago
I Had NO HEART
-
(Mezzo-Soprano in full-voice Victorious)YEAH!
Though My Origins Be Random
and The Random Be The God of Chance
and If The God of Chance Be Satan
and Eye Be Banished to The Nave of Hell
YET I AM WHOLE
and This
MY GROUND
IS
HEAVEN!
---------------------
AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT:The Sonnet nested in the above final movement was first written as a Classroom Exercise prompted by Poe's Quoth the Raven. I had no idea then that the finality of Death might in fact be the most culminating victory of SelfConscious Life - for only in Death and Separation is the Individual clearly set apart from The Beloved Otherness of Being. Individual Death is the only meaningful statement of Absolute Necessity. This is what should be reflected in the finale - one of JOY in the final demarcation of Self from Otherness. The Eternal that remains thus rests solely in Language, in The Word of Ages, The Community of Being.
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