IN A GROVE Libretto March 2022 by Christopher Cerrone

IN A GROVE libretto • February 2022

IN A GROVE adapted from the short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

an opera in 2 parts music by Christopher Cerrone libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann

LIBRETTO • February 2022

Stephanie Fleischmann is represented by Barbara Hogenson The Barbara Hogenson Agency 165 West End Avenue, Suite 19C NY, NY 10023 212-874-8084 Bhogenson@aol.com

FORCES SINGERS The Woodcutter/The Outlaw (Luther Harlow)—baritone The Priest/The Medium—countertenor The Policeman/The Schoolteacher (Ambrose Raines)—tenor Leona Raines/Leona’s Mother—soprano

INSTRUMENTATION Fl, Cl, Horn, Harp, 2 Perc, Piano/Keyboard, Violin, Cello, and electronics TIME/PLACE 1921, Oregon; a landscape similar to that of Deschuettes, Malheur Counties or Siskiyou after multiple wildfires. A ghost forest caused by fire instead of salt.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

PART I: TESTIMONIES 1. THE WOODCUTTER A police station. A woodcutter delivers his testimony. THE WOODCUTTER I found the body in the grove, in the grove, in the grove where I go every day to cut wood. On the mountain, not far off the Foundry Post Road. Through the fog, I saw a flash of blue. I made my way past splintered saplings, over trampled ground— Until I came upon a body lying in a bed of broken fireweed, leaves stained red, chest, struck through. The blood had dried, trapping a single fly, straining to be free. There was no blade, no sign of a horse. I found only a rope coiled in the roots of a hemlock— and a brooch.

[This scene repeats several times, overlaid, in the transition, by the first section of the following scene.]

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

2. THE PRIEST The same interrogation room. A PRIEST delivers his testimony to the detective. THE PRIEST On the Foundry Post Road I passed a man leading a woman on a horse. He tipped his hat. I assumed she was his wife. The sun was high. The brim of her cloche shadowed her face. I remember— the violet of her clothes. But more than this I do not— How tall was she? What color was her hair? I don’t recall. I am but a priest. It is not my way to notice the details of a lady— I remember— her figure , a violet satin sheen, the mare’s mane cut short. the rich, deep chestnut of its coat. The settler’s gun— a rifle. The fine leather detail of its scabbard. I never thought— That today he would be— (dead) Life is fleeting. My deepest—

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

3. THE POLICEMAN

4. THE MOTHER

A policeman and an old woman, each in his/her separate space, speak their testimonies. A POLICEMAN I caught the bandit on the Ragged Creek Bridge last night at dusk. Luther Harlow. Hobbled by a fall from his horse. The vigilante’s evaded me countless times, but I put an end to that last night. (under THE OLDER WOMAN) The vigilante has evaded me countless times. Hobbled by a fall from his horse. Luther Harlow. Last night at dusk. I caught the bandit on Ragged Creek Bridge.

POLICEMAN I arrested the suspect as the mountainside smoked and the mare looked on, grazing by the side of the road. Luther Harlow, wearing green, armed with this: (A beat as he offers up a rifle in a tooled leather scabbard.) Leather, finely tooled. (As if in answer to a question:) The mare? Her mane was cropped.

LEONA’S MOTHER I have gazed upon the corpse and I can tell you that’s him, my daughter’s husband— Dead, he’s dead— Her husband is dead— And my daughter, Leona— She’s gone, disappeared vanished— Please— You must tell me— Where is she? [What has happened to her? Where is she? What has happened to her? Where is she?]

LEONA’S MOTHER The dead man? He has a name. Ambrose Raines. School teacher. They were on their way from his people to hers, newly wed. They had known each other just a couple of months. To my eye, he looked a little…sickly. Dreamy, she used to say. I wasn’t at all sure, but she seemed so— taken. 3

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

POLICEMAN If the victim owned an Enfield then Harlow’s your man. He’s feared around here, reviled.

LEONA’S MOTHER Describe my child? Nineteen. Bright. Headstrong Obsessed with the names of plants, trees, stones. She wants to study botany, evergreens, heartwood. (catching herself, growing visibly more upset) But knowing that won’t help you find her.

POLICEMAN Some say Harlow’s to blame for the string of women gone missing on the mountain. Her eyes? They change color depending on the day. They change color depending on the light. Her skin is clear. A mark. Here. (She points to a spot on her face.) But you must tell me. Where is she? What has happened to her? POLICEMAN What color was the mare, did you say? Where is she? What has happened to her? POLICEMAN What color was the mare? Chestnut.

MUSIC. Interlude.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

PART II: CONFESSIONS 5. THE OUTLAW We are still in the police station interrogation room. THE OUTLAW You want me to talk? You want me to talk? You want me to talk? I’ll talk. I’ll hang no matter what I say. But you should know I suffered a blow. I hit my head hard enough (he shakes his head, closes his eyes and opens them, shakes his head again) to blur the edges of remembering. Half way to Fossil Mine, I look up. I see a man leading a girl on a horse, making their way towards me. Strangers. Out of place in these parts, A breeze blows up, the girl’s hat flies off, her face— her eyes—

The man and woman appear.

I wanted her. There. And then. Greetings, I call out. There’s a grove beyond the entrance to the mine, where folks buried a small fortune. Moonstones, silver, pretty trinkets for the lady. The girl’s eyes are far away. The trove, I keep on. I could use some help digging it up. Just a few steps out of your way. The man nods, the man nods, the man nods, 5

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

but the girl isn’t sold.

LEONA Ambrose,

she urges them on, Ambrose, she urges them on, Down the road.

Ambrose, let’s go. Ambrose—

She tries again. Ambrose— She tries again. Ambrose, no. She isn’t sold. AMBROSE Why not? What’s the harm in looking? She sighs. He just nods at me. And we head towards the blackened husks of fir beyond the ridge— But as we approach the turnoff to the grove, she pulls on the reins. LEONA I’m not going in there. THE OUTLAW She says. You go. I’ll wait. The mare roots and shies.

He insists. The girl holds her ground.

AMBROSE I can’t leave you here, alone. It’s not safe. LEONA (trying not to let OUTLAW hear) You think it’s safe to follow god knows who— AMBROSE I just want to give you something— LEONA How do you know that he’s telling the truth? AMBROSE I want to give you something— I just want to give you something beautiful.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

LEONA Just go.

THE OUTLAW Come, through here, I say. The treasure awaits. He turns from her, he takes my bait, follows me in, leaving her there, alone— as we go crashing through the thicket and into the grove. As LEONA waits, THE OUTLAW seizes AMBROSE. They tussle. AMBROSE No! Please! I— (under his breath) My heart— THE OUTLAW ties AMROSE with a rope to a tree and gags him with fallen leaves. Whether we see this or not is still to be determined. THE OUTLAW returns to LEONA, who is waiting, humming to herself to shut out the fear, alone. LEONA Ambrose!? No! OUTLAW She’d followed us in. LEONA (knife drawn) What have you done to him? LEONA draws a knife and slashes at THE OUTLAW. OUTLAW She lunges at me with a knife. I knock the weapon from her hand. She rams into him or tries to tackle him. The girl is wild, fierce, lit. Overcome, I throw her in the brush— blistered by her burning eyes, the heat of her, the glare of her disgust, as sharp as desire. 7

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

I don’t know how or when— She slips from my hold, disappears straight out from under me, leaving me like a pile of dirt on the ground. LEONA picks up a stone and flings it at the OUTLAW. She is a crack shot. A rock cracks against my skull. Blinding, shooting pain, blackness. When I can see again—sky spinning, lights flashing— she’s slashing at his ropes, slapping the fallen blade into his freed palm. I pull myself up, unsteady. I stand. She murmurs something too quiet for me to hear. He pales, then he thrusts at me.

LEONA (whispered, unintelligible) Ambrose, please do something. Please, Ambrose, why don’t you do something?

As they fight (with knives), LEONA grabs the rifle, aiming it at the brawling men. Still stunned— The blow— I am not myself. The trees tilt. The man holds his own. The girl, she— Picks up the gun, aiming it at us both. She picks up the gun. She picks up the gun. She picks up the gun and— LEONA points the gun into the sky and shoots. As AMBROSE turns towards her, confused as to whether he’s been shot (he hasn’t), THE OUTLAW stabs him. AMBROSE collapses. The OUTLAW looks up. LEONA is gone. The grove as quiet as the grave, save for the gasps of the dying man, the rifle left lying on the moss. I took the gun and fled. Found the mare on the road. The rest you know. I’m as good as dead. Might as well tell the truth. I killed him. I snuffed him out. I killed him. I snuffed him out.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

The girl—? How should I know where she’s gone? MUSIC. Interlude as the grove shifts, further enclosing the audience, taking on some sort of quality that’s different from the first. The quality of another kind of memory altogether. More heightened, less matter of fact.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

6. THE MISSING WOMAN Light delineates a space that is not the police station but rather a mountainside chapel or convent. LEONA I have come to this place— I have come to this place— I have come to this place seeking refuge. From what happened on the mountain. From the truth. I want nothing more than to cover it up, block it out. But you would have me remember, recount. [A shift via MUSIC; a replay of the encounter we saw in scene 5, from a different point of view.] Crossing Burnt Rock Pass a man appears— threadbare clothes, coiled rope. Ambrose, always buried in his books, doesn’t seem to see the stranger’s ragged grin, his rusted eyes cutting straight through me.

THE OUTLAW Greetings. Just past the entrance to the mine stands a grove of hemlocks— buried there lies a cache of treasure, left behind by some settler on the run. LEONA And that’s all it takes. My husband is entranced. THE OUTLAW Moonstones, opals, silver filigree. AMBROSE Opals, like your eyes, LEONA he says. (to AMBROSE) Ambrose— It’ll be dark soon— AMBROSE I’ll be quick, I promise—

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

LEONA he replies, with that look of his, so I can’t help but give in, give over— when the stranger’s sneer stops me cold. We don’t want anything to do with him, I whisper. But Ambrose keeps on: AMBROSE A windfall we could use— LEONA But why—? AMBROSE So I can keep you in finery— LEONA I don’t need to be kept. AMBROSE So I can provide— Protect against— LEONA Protect? Ambrose. Stay with me. Please. But my husband, suddenly a stranger himself, turns and goes— As AMBROSE follows the man into the grove, leaving LEONA by herself, waiting. disappears into the shadows. He follows the drifter into the grove. Smoke, ash, smoldering ghosts of looming trees— once stands of aspen, juniper.

Alone, LEONA sings a ditty to keep fear at bay.

We hear an echo of AMBROSE: No! Please, I— We see THE OUTLAW making his way towards her.

The man, emerging from the grove, alone strides towards me. Ugly, rough, he comes too close. THE OUTLAW Hurry, come! Your husband, he’s— LEONA I follow, keeping my distance, 11

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

calling on the cedar relics for protection. MUSIC, as they move towards the grove.] Upon entering the grove, LEONA sees her husband bound and gagged. LEONA Ambrose!

LEONA moves towards AMBROSE.

LEONA The stranger cuts me off, throws me, holds me down. His stench— sweat, tobacco, metal, flint— does not smother me, I do not cry out. I do not feel the hot damp of his breath blasting in my face. I hear nothing but the sound of my own name Leona. Leona. Leona. I twist out from under him, hide behind a tree. A shift. The tension of quiet. LEONA, hiding behind a tree, grabs the knife from where it’s fallen on the ground. She picks up a stone and flings it at at the OUTLAW. I hurl the stone. It hits its mark.

We see the rock cracking against his skull, the man staggering, crashing to the ground.

I grab my knife from where it fell. My husband’s wrists are bound, mouth, crammed full of leaves— I undo the blindfold, cut his ties. Ambrose, I plead. Ambrose. Let’s leave this place. Come on. Let’s go. But Ambrose just spits the last leaves from his mouth, he says nothing as the man stirs—

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

Ambrose, before it’s too late— Take my knife. LEONA presses the knife into his hand. AMBROSE takes it, but doesn’t move.

But Ambrose just murmurs.

AMBROSE (frozen, wooden) My heart, LEONA What did you say? AMBROSE My heart. I can’t— LEONA I don’t understand— AMBROSE My heart. It won’t— LEONA Ambrose! You brought us here, I lash, as the man staggers to his feet. Go on! Go on! But Ambrose, still as a tree, doesn’t move, he just looks through me—

A suspended moment. AMBROSE spins around, towards Luther, entering into combat. As they fight (with knives), LEONA grabs the rifle, aiming it at them both.

Two smudges, slashing at the smoke— I aim the rifle at their rabid strokes, Ambrose, gaining now, with a mettle I’d missed. [beat] As his strength begins to wane, as his strength begins to wane, I point the muzzle towards the smoke-glutted sky. I point the muzzle towards the smoke-glutted sky— We hear a loud gunshot. The echoing silence of its aftermath. The OUTLAW stumbles, flailing, thrusting the blade into his opponent’s side.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

(she cries out) Ambrose—! LEONA runs towards AMBROSE, dropping the gun. Agrimony, yarrow, goldenrod to stop the spilling blood. I forage nettle, dock, pyrola to staunch the wound— I look up. The man is gone. Agrimony, yarrow, goldenrod— I know these things. I can help him— Crocus, to blunt the pain. (With AMBROSE now, tending to him.) Look at me. AMBROSE (looking away) I can’t. How could you? How could you? AMBROSE I heard, I saw. LEONA Nothing. You saw nothing. AMBROSE Moonstones, opals, eyes on fire— burning for him. LEONA Him? And in that moment I am like a tree, heartwood cracked. What we had is gone. All the good done in— AMBROSE Erased. [AMBROSE breathes in, a strange sound.] LEONA Ambrose. Ambrose. No. 14

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

A hollow rattle, and he’s dead. Agrimony, yarrow, goldenrod, nettle, pyrola, dock. Stunned by his scorn, his sudden, stony hate, I faltered— I failed to apply pressure to the wound, to staunch his bleeding, to keep death at bay. I failed. It was me. I killed him. I failed. It was me. I failed. I killed him. It was me. Leona. I ram myself against a rock. I carve a crevice in my skin. I turn back. Sun streaming through the blackened grove, lighting up the body— Its pallor shines, it shone. I run, blindly, through the woods, hurtling down the steep, flinging myself over ledge and precipice, plunging into a black, bottomless pool, weighed down with rocks. I do not drown— Stepping before a stampeding cart, I endure, bruised, but breathing still. I stand before you, a murderer— Destroyed. What am I to—? What am I to—? What am I—? INTERLUDE—During which the space shifts.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

7. THE MURDERED MAN, CHANNELED BY A MEDIUM GUNSHOT. We are in a new reality. The vastness of empty space. THE MEDIUM Silence is the sound of a heart growing cold. As the mountain throws its shadow across the grove. MEDIUM & AMBROSE (etc.) Cold heart, cold bones, weak heart, my heart was weak. Rheumatic fever when I was three. Sentenced to half a life. Weak heart. I was weak. I couldn’t bear for her to know.

THE OUTLAW Greetings, good day.

LEONA Darkness falling. Ambrose. We need to go. So I kept it from her, my heart kept it from me, pushed it down, under the skin of who I was, how I wanted to be seen.

And so, needing to prove I was invincible, wanting to give her the moon, I fell for his ruse.

THE OUTLAW Greetings, good day. I’m on my way to dig up a haul of shining gold you’ve never set your eyes on. Care to join me?

LEONA Opals? Moonstones? MEDIUM/AMBROSE Her glow so bright I could hardly believe—

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

MEDIUM/AMBROSE Was she mine? Needing to prove— I walked into his net, left her waiting, alone. [we jump forward in time] Blindfolded, bound, my mind’s eye— Sounds too terrible to— As he lured her and he took her, as he used her, as he broke her, as, my back turned, bound, I could do nothing. LEONA Ambrose! AMBROSE She stops him with a stone.

LEONA But I don’t care about—

THE OUTLAW I will take her from you, I will break her into bits.

[Do we see her throwing the stone? Untying him? ] THE OUTLAW Sky spinning, lights flashing—

LEONA Look at me! But I won’t. Fearing the weakness she sees inscribed in me— Afraid to face my own frailty reflected in her gaze— My heart— I try to speak— I fail. I should have told her then, but I hated her like I’d loved her— swept up in a storm of love and hate— hated myself more than anything— I was in too deep, I’d obscured who I was. My feebleness an afterthought, I gave in to the fate written on my leaky valves. Less than half a life.

LEONA I don’t understand.

Your heart?

LEONA Ambrose! You brought us here. Do something Don’t just— Ambrose! LUTHER I pull myself up, unsteady— 17

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

MEDIUM/AMBROSE I had no choice but to fight. I faded soon enough. (Reprise echo of decayed gunshot. As he’s dying) Hating her for stepping in, hating myself more than anything, I hold it close— my heart’s atrophy—

LUTHER I grab the gun and go.

LEONA Agrimony, yarrow, goldenrod— Ambrose, why won’t you look at me? I heard, I saw— I cut as she tends to me: Nothing. You saw nothing. I heard, I saw, I know— Nettle, dock, pyrola. I can help you— You’re nothing to me, I leave her. I slide towards unknowingness, letting her believe— I failed to apply pressure to the wound— And so I broke her. It was me. I killed him. It was me. I killed him. And now— There’s no turning back. I can’t absolve her. No matter how far she travels from this blackened grove, Heartwood cracked. every time she shuts her eyes she’ll see what she believes she did to me.

IN A GROVE libretto March 2022

LEONA I stand before you, a murderer— MEDIUM/AMBROSE So I stay here, in between, splintered saplings, trampled ground, a bed of broken fireweed, lost, lurching through the emptiness, haunted by her opal eyes, even in this dim, blockaded by venom, dolor, remorse.

LEONA Smoke, ash, smoldering ghosts,

LUTHER The grove, as quiet as the grave

looming trees—

(We hear the chopping of the woodcutter.) MEDIUM Silence is the sound of a heart growing cold. As the mountain throws its shadow across the grove, hemlock fading, birdsong flown, shrouding the silence of the sky’s dissolving as I fall into the arms of unending dark—

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