In 2019, I was selected as a Librettist Fellow through The American Opera Project’s 10th Composers & the Voice Fellowship Cycle. My time at AOP, though interrupted by the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, was a priceless part of my career’s journey. AOP was the first time I felt I didn't have to apologize for my vision and my work. I was truly valued as a complete artist. The things I learned I will carry with me for the rest of my career. Below are highlights from my work as a librettist during the program.
The Flaming Light
The following is an aria with text by Jay St. Flono and composer Tony Solitro during Cycle 10 of The American Opera Project’s “Composers & the Voice” Fellowship Training Program. The aria is sung by the character of Zolomon, a sorcerer who recalls the day when he was burned by a mysterious star that fell from the sky and destroyed his forest. Afraid and mesmerized, he felt drawn toward the flaming light. When Zolomon laid eyes on it, he experienced love for the first time in his life. The Flaming Light is taken from the short story I Have Loved for Sayid.
The flaming light struck the face of the sky
It hollowed my honeycombs,
Massacring the mountainside.
Light fell from the egg of Heaven
In a bolt of sparkling yolk,
Scalding the salty waters
Turning my fields to black smoke!
What is this merciful sound?
What is this mesmerizing thing?
Fragile as glass, but strong enough
To roar and resound?
I hear a voice
Like the moanings in a tomb,
The light is not as it had seemed.
It comes to me
Dispelling death and doom,
And washes my widdendream away!
The flaming light struck the face of my heart.
It swallowed my swaying soul,
And burned my skin like an art.
Light fell to rest,
Its nature a mystery.
It clung to my chest, saying, “you will lose yourself in me!”
Mater Nostra
Mater Nostra is about the immensity of the ocean as it relates to various water spirit traditions carried in the bowels of slave-ships from West-Central Africa throughout the Diaspora. Written in an imperfect Latin, Mater Nostra serves as a stand-in for indigenous African water spirit traditions (Mami Wata, Simbi, Njuzu, etc.) that syncretized within Catholic and Baptist religious structures through the Blessed Virgin, Moses, and other spiritual figures as a method of survival under Christianity.
LYRICS
Mater Nostra, nos invocare sanguine Africani ad consecrant templum hoc de anima.
Mater Nostra, nos invocare spiritum Africani, qui vicit spiritus servitutis et invenit
perpetuam pacem.
Mater Nostra, nos benedicat ossibus Africani, qui dormiunt in ventre Atlanticum Oceanum, vetus Mare, Tenebrae
Mater Nostra, libera nos a morte, Infrno et gravem.
Ut benigna mortuus nos protegat in saecula saeculorum!
Amen!
LYRICS (English)
Our mother, we invoke the blood of the Africans to consecrate this temple of the soul.
Our mother, we invoke the spirit of the Africans who conquered the spirit of slavery and found
everlasting peace
Our mother, we bless the bones of the Africans who sleep in the belly of the Atlantic Ocean, the old Sea of Darkness.
Our mother, save us from death, Hell and the grave.
May the benevolent dead protect us forever and ever!
Amen
"Mater Nostra"
Music by Alaina Ferris
Text by Jay St. Flono
Jasmine Muhammad, soprano
Kelly Horsted, piano
Afromancidon
“Afromancidon” is a vibrant escapist fantasy that uses sensory-rich language to evoke a sweeping, mystical dreamscape.
Slipping sands sing painted pleasures of my past
The flow of sojourn’s song, at last,
Clothes me close in sun rays
Yellow as youthfulness.
Lovingness cocoons me,
Soothes me,
Softer, serener, sweeter than witchcraft.
Sing, skin of my soul!
Flame and overflow in the fields of my faith
Burning bold in pools of never-dead memories
Lingering and chilling me so slow-like
Loosing all my tenderness in a bloom of bliss
I see the sea waving his salt-sea goodbyes,
Soundless colors rush to take me high,
I sing a lasting note
And Eden marries Cíbola,
falling free in woven passion,
I dream of dreaming,
Sing of singing,
Leave of leaving,
To Afromancidon.
Music by Mary Prescott
Text by Jay St. Flono
Snowdrop
Snowdrop is a series of cinquains exploring the polarities of darkness/light rising to meet each other within a single form; in this case it takes on the form of amorous feelings for a doomed individual or love that has been gained briefly and then lost very suddenly.
LYRICS
Snowdrop
Tenderhearted
Sugary and surreal
Your soft ice swims slow at gay seas,
Kiss me
Snowdrop
So sweet, too sweet
Innocent with pure frost
Let me touch you in the silence,
White one
Snowdrop
Heal and hurt me
Let me unravel you
Undulate and quicken in me,
Virgin
Snowdrop
Never as good
Ignore this horrid soil,
This beastly burden’s unsung truth,
Knows you
Snowdrop
You are melting
Into a pool of glass
Into my black, timorous hands
You die
"Snowdrop"
Music by Michael Lanci
Text by Jay St. Flono
Mario Diaz-Moresco, baritone
Spencer Myer, piano