“A Vision”

As in the first opera, our protagonist is again plagued by fearful dreams. Her nightmare, acted out for our benefit, depicts her standing still on a surreal and desolate plain, and looking increasingly frightened under an eerie, moonless and starless night sky.

Nine demons with lanterns dance unpredictably toward, past and around her, menacingly and threateningly. We see her become increasingly shaken at all of this harrassment, as that feeling of helpless utter terror so common to nightmares fully grips her mind.

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Tags: curse, dance, demon, doom, fate, frenzy, menace, modern opera, nightmare, phophetic, revenge, sad, terror


 “Vengeance”

Sharing the title of its opera, this central-thematic piece finds Satan and his demons in a peak of rage, plotting revenge against our protagonist for her indirect and inadvertent sharing of the Gospel with the eavesdropping prostitute in the first opera, “Project Eternity”.

The hearer had repented right then and there, and she sought God earnestly from that day forward.

She eventually died and entered Heaven. And for that, Satan and a great horde of screaming and raging demons now vow to bring down upon our protagonist a terrible act of Vengeance.

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Tags: demon, evil, modern opera, rage, revenge, sad, salvation, Satan, vexed


 “Master Deceiver”

In this necrowaltz, Demons frenetically praise their leader in both song and dance, to a theme consisting of sped-up and grotesque embellishments of the plainsong motif we heard in “The Friendship Waltz”. During the eventual peak of their manic glee over the prospect of more human eternal damnation, the voice of God is suddenly and shockingly heard in one word: “Enough!!” The now shrieking and wailing wraiths scatter in terror.

God’s following few and loud words to them speak of the young woman in the same way that He famously spoke to Satan of “My servant Job” in the Bible. We then see the young woman, and hear her plaintively giving up on ever again attempting to help bring her friends to Christ. Judging from what she has just heard from them, she now feels that such an attempt is futile.

But suddenly, we hear angels voicing robust encouragement, exhorting her to “Go!!” We hear this audibly, but she hears with her heart. She resolves to go to her friends, and to try one last time: She will share the Good News with them herself — and on their turf this time.

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Tags: damnation, dance of death, demon, doom, encouragement, eternity, evil, friends, Hell, impending doom, modern opera, revel, sad, Satan, shofar, totentanz


 “Christ”

Our protagonist has yet another prophetic dream, this time a “forthtelling” (revealing present but hidden truths) rather than a “foretelling” (revealing future events) dream, as she did last time (to use two theological terms). In this third dream sequence, God symbolically reminds her of the nature of the true path of all Christians: that they must follow in Christ’s own troubled and weary footsteps on His way to Calvary, and that all must “take up the cross and follow” Him. The dream conjures up a physical manifestation of that admonition by Jesus to His hearers in Matthew 16:24.

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Tags: attack, Christ's cross, count the cost, demon, dream, evil, Jesus Christ, Matthew 16:24, modern opera, prophetic, sacrifice, sad, take up your cross, visions


“Continuing Nightmares”

Sitting straight up in her bed in the dim moonlight, the young woman seems truly overwhelmed by the new combination of her current grief over her brother and the ghastly nature of the images in her recent dreams. She slowly looks downward in sadness, then eventually upward as if to God. Without a word, she somehow finds a small amount of peace — enough to try and go back to sleep and just hope for the best.

After she resumes her sleep, however, the terror returns, but along with a new and much more pointed set of prophetic visions. Suddenly, in the middle of all the action of the people and demons in her dream, everything freezes in time, outside of which we now see the original angel — the one from the very first scene in the opera, the one with the Book. He is again somberly reading the Book. The elements in the scene the young woman dreams are still a bit surreal and proverbial in nature, but one thing she now knows for certain: Her friends are in great danger!

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Tags: angel, Book, chase, damnation, demon, evil, modern opera, nightmare, prophetic, sad, salvation, terror


“Nightmares”

Our protagonist is plagued with strange, dark and disjointed dreams, which are acted out for us in the vicinity of her bedroom, before she suddenly awakens with a gasp of terror!

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Tags: danger, demon, evil, friends, horror, modern opera, nightmare, prophetic, sad, sleep, tragedy, visions, warning


 “The Fall”

The opera begins with a lone angel, sitting high up and in the distance. He is solemnly and slowly poring over a large Book, first at the left-hand page, then at the right. The angel slowly shakes his head in sadness, bows it, and closes the Book.

The next scene is a battlefield during wartime. Both the geographical area and the soldiers’ uniforms are generic, but a time period slightly in the future is suggested by the presence of armed female combatants marching with males and in equal numbers. The soldiers are singing a military march which boasts of their power. Very soon, though, all are killed by a powerful land mine blast.

In the next scene, they are spirits. A large shadow of a pointing hand appears on the curtain: God tells the spirits to “Depart”. Next, there is silence and almost total darkness. The spirits are wondering where they are and what has happened. Satan appears, and explains that they now belong to him. He has a lot of cruel fun with the full explanation, holding back information and dragging out the process for as long as amuses him. The spirits simply cannot accept their new reality at first. But toward the end of this scene, they realize their doom in full. With profound sorrow and regret, they finally accept their most grim of all fates, and their wills melt into eternal defeat. A circle made up of demons rapidly closes in upon the spirits as this ultra-tragic piece ends.

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Tags: battlefield, damnation, death, demon, disturbing, evil, fate, God, Hell, inspiring, land mine, military march, modern opera, sad, Satan, soliders, soul, spirit, terror, tragedy, unsettling, war

A single story thread runs through both operas, beginning in “Project Eternity” and ending with its sequel, “Vengeance”. I should explain the meanings of the two titles here. “Project Eternity” refers simply to God’s wish and various attempts to bring each of us to Heaven. The title “Vengeance” refers to Satan’s expressed vow of retribution against our protagonist, the unnamed young Christian woman, for her indirectly sharing the Gospel with a prostitute, who overhears it as the Christian woman is explaining eternal salvation to a friend. Her friend disdainfully rejects the message and leaves, but the prostitute who overhears it feels moved by God to repent, and, then and there, privately turns her life over to Him. She enters Heaven in the final scene of “Project Eternity”. Satan is livid at this turn of events; after all, he had owned that woman’s soul, and she would have been his to torment forever — until the Christian woman came along and interfered. Thus, in “Vengeance”, Satan takes out his wrath in full upon our protagonist.

Tags: angel, chorus, Christian, classical music, demon, God, Jesus Christ, modern opera, Satan