“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


 “Friendship Faltz”

Its title parodying that of “The Friendship Waltz”, as well as more subtly suggesting the words “false” and “faults”, this minor-key embellishment of the former work once again features the group of four friends, who, short of blissfully singing simplistic songs about the supposed meaning of life, as they did before, now instead begin to shallowly gossip against their “friend”, the young woman whom they recently abandoned — and who now covertly is overhearing them, having just now arrived to try and talk with them again.

Though hurtful and sad to the young woman, her friends’ current behavior is simply delightful to one character in particular, and proves to be precisely what that “Master Deceiver” has been attempting to arrange, as we discover in the following piece, which bears Satan’s title.

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Tags: Christians, complain, damnation, demons, doom, eternity, evil, friends, gossip, impending doom, modern opera, sad, Satan


“Dilemma”

This scene takes us back to the interior of our protagonist’s home, once again, but this time in the middle of the night. She is slowly pacing, with her head lowered, clearly feeling buried in heavy thoughts. She laments aloud her predicament, which involves a specific decision which she is now faced with. Somehow, she must reconcile the two main events that have occurred with her so far in our story: the recent death of her brother, and the invitation she offered to take her friends to church for the unique event. Her being personally so grief-stricken, the church event seems trivial in appearance.

But, as so many “regular” events in our lives prove themselves to be, the significance is actually quite profound. The reason is that she plans for her friends to attend an especially moving concert with her, after which the Gospel message of Christ will be shared with the audience. This new significance is revealed to us in a soliloquy, as she thinks out her problem: She is deeply depressed due to the loss of her brother, but she is also highly convinced that this particular one-time church event will likely be an eternity-deciding point in her friends’ lives. Thus, to her mind, her love for them is placed directly at odds with her very personal and profound need to grieve her recent loss.

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Tags: anxiety, Christian, depression, difficulty, dilemma, eternity, grief, impasse, modern opera, night, pacing, sad, salvation, soliloquy, worry