Philippa - an opera [blog 2]

As mentioned in my previous blog on this subject [Philippa blog I, 16 September 2012], I have been talking to people about this opera for some years now. But now I've decided to work on the piece in the open, via my blog, until such time as someone commissions it or the libretto (or opera) is finished. Below I've started fleshing out Act I from a revised synopsis which has placed the action mostly within the years 1966-67, in a tighter time-frame in order to increase the urgency of Philippa's need to find a solution to her life's dilemma.

Philippa

Prelude

A Requiem Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, May 1967. We hear messages of condolence from luminaries of American public life – Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., President Johnson…

The bereaved parents GEORGE, the African-American journalist (bass), and JODY, the wealthy white Texan (mezzo), sit together. CARDINAL SPELLMAN (tenor) mounts the pulpit. HE says they have come to commemorate the short life of Philippa Duke Schuyler, pianist, composer – the second [check] journalist to be killed in Vietnam. JODY, the bereaved mother, flares up in grief, asking: “How can she rest in peace when her potential lies unfulfilled?” Her husband tries to comfort her but is rebuffed. The CONGREGATION raises its voice in affirmation, drowned out by the rotation noise of helicopter blades, and the tape of a Mayday call.

Act I Vietnam, Sep 1966

To the best of my recollection, this is the Conservatorium in Saigon, one of Philippa's performance venues

PHILIPPA (soprano) arrives in Saigon; gun emplacements and other signs of war. The chaperone (mezzo) from the Embassy briefs her (a personal explanation of the war and some rules of behaviour). Oblivious to danger, PHILIPPA resents her chaperone’s restrictions because they remind her of Jody’s instructions at home. There she can’t act freely because ultimately because she was always meant to be ‘America’s bi-racial genius’. SHE knows that while she is away in Vietnam, Jody will be back in New York reliving  the odyssey of baby Philippa with the scrapbooks and reminiscences Jody has kept since Philippa was a baby; the scrapbooks PHILIPPA resents that were meant to map out her life’s journey in minute detail. [Where does Young Philippa fit here - obbligato playing?]

A scene with AFRICAN-AMERICAN SERVICE MUSICIANS: but PHILIPPA plays classical music. SHE has looked everywhere for the perfect place for her. SHE relates how her parents met in Harlem in the 1920s and got married, a risky undertaking in those days (Jody's family's milieux was lynching Texas), except that Harlem was a little bit of a sanctuary. What THEY tell her indicates that no divide has been bridged since then; THEY call the white US servicemen ‘Charlie’ and vice versa. THEY offer to give her a lift up-country. [This is clumsy – gotta get over this better. Why go up-country?]

PHILIPPA gives Mrs D the slip and discovers freedom (she can put on an aí daò and blend into the crowd, escaping physically (“No-one sees me”) but not psychically.’ [But what exactly happens? Gotta sort it out.]

In a hamlet in the countryside SHE stays the night after the GIs have left (had to leave; not safe). The Viet Cong come through. She overhears the COMMANDER say, ‘Chúng ta sẽ đánh đuõỉ bọn giạc ngoại xâm ra khoỉ đát nủởc’ [which Philippa translates in Act II as ‘We will kick the foreigners out.’] and realises she has been taken for Vietnamese and left alone: “I can blend in here. But identity has always been a torment” [danger: this is flat – telling, not revealing. Real torment is needed to set up the Act I ‘meeting-with-her-destiny’ ending; how does all the torment of the past come forward? the desperation with which she grabs at immersion is one clue?].

Cadenza: PHILIPPA expresses her new-found freedom in new composition. She incorporates Vietnamese styles; But the embassy staff want her to play classics in her concerts – even here she cannot escape branding.

A priest (bass) she met at the concert has invited her to his orphanage. He admired her book about priests in Africa risking martyrdom, Jungle Saints. And wants to understand better what she was grasping at. Then he introduces Philippa to the ‘orphans’, the children of US servicemen and Vietnamese women. She is entranced; she softens: who are they? Are they unwanted? Whose history is theirs? What do they need? "Support", says the priest.

Mrs D brings Philippa a telegram from Jody [are Jody and Mrs D the same singer or just same voice type?]. Jody wants her home. She is meant to be a professional musician.

Philippa doesn’t want to leave – she has discovered children who are between cultures just like she was, but aircraft engines (or the call of the piano?) start up. She goes.

End Act I 

How much of the cultural hinterland needs to be present? Does 1930s Harlem enter this Act?