In this scene, our protagonist dies. The young woman is first seen on her hospital bed, barely clinging to life. Alone in her room, she soon stretches her hand up toward Heaven, and gives a weak-voiced, one-word prayer — all that she can manage — a plea for her boyfriend’s parents.
Simultaneously, but off to the side of the stage and in an otherworldly environment, her boyfriend’s parents are standing still and wearing blindfolds, demons surrounding them. Yet the parents don’t seem afraid. If anything, they look quite relaxed and contented, standing rather casually instead of rigidly, clearly not noticing.
On the opposite side of the stage, by himself, the boyfriend is on his knees, praying. As soon as he begins to pray, the demons cease their threatening advance toward his parents, look upward apprehensively, and then glare toward where the young woman is.
Both side-scenes are then darkened, and we once again can see only the young woman in her room. She now begins to have difficulty breathing. She turns her head toward the audience. Then, she is gone.
Tags: believe, boyfriend, death, demon, disease, dying wish, evil, faith, girlfriend, happy, illness, Jesus Christ, modern opera, otherworldly, prayer, repentance, sad, salvation
This scene takes place in a small hospital waiting room. What we witness is the grief and dread on the faces of the young woman and her companion, as they, in silent sorrow, contemplate her fate.
Tags: anguish, anxiety, boyfriend, fear, girlfriend, gloom, grief, hospital, modern opera, pain, sad, waiting room
The boyfriend returns, running back to the young woman’s doorway panic-stricken and breathless. He urgently asks her what’s wrong.
She is beside herself, wide-eyed, very afraid, in tears, and her voice is faltering as she attempts to explain to him that she awoke from her nightmare to find bizarre and terrifying marks on her face and body. After seeing the malevolent marks, he is aghast, and momentarily speechless.
After a long pause, he frantically asks her what they are. She screams back that she doesn’t know, so he insists they go to a hospital immediately.
Tags: beside herself, bizarre, blotches, boyfriend, curse, deadly disease, deadly marks, doom, emergency, fear, girlfriend, hospital, illness, malevolent, modern opera, sad, sickness, terror
The scene is a college campus, outdoors. The boyfriend, sitting alone, has his head in a textbook. Along comes a flirtatious blonde female student — the very girl his parents mentioned in “Advice” as an alternative to his current girlfriend. The flirtatious student plops down next to her crush, startling him. She playfully asks what he’s doing, and after he tells her he’s studying for a science exam, she asks him out on a casual date.
He confesses that he already has a girlfriend, at which point she stands back up, still smiling, and hints that her offer remains open anyway. She then blithely skips away, leaving him shaking his head dismissively before resuming his studies.
The music during his initial studying is intentionally stiff and formal in style. I sought here to reflect my own impressions of school.
Tags: asks him out, boyfriend, college campus, date, flirt, girlfriend, happy, modern opera, science, student, studying, test, textbook
Our protagonist’s boyfriend and his parents are dining in their home. The lecture initially begun in “Advice” resumes here, and in greater detail.
To his true annoyance, which at one point peaks with him raising his voice to his mother, his parents once again team up to dissuade him from staying with his girlfriend, by pointing out her perceived weaknesses.
The music is handled in a tongue-and-cheek manner, sequentially pairing two incompatible styles in order to have fun contrasting each parent’s personality.
Tags: advice, boyfriend, charity, college, demean, drop-out, funny, girlfriend, gossip, insult, intelligence, Japanese, Jazz trombone, koto, lecture, modern opera, parents
In this cowboy-style piece, her boyfriend walks the young woman home along a country path under a gorgeous, starry night sky. The couple argue civilly along the way, about both his cowardly denial to his parents of her Christian faith, and about the ‘other woman’ his parents favorably mentioned.
Thankfully, this conversation ends well, and even warmly, as they part, following his reassurance of his love delivered via a spontaneous and deeply romantic solo ballad at her doorway.
Download “Mosey on Home” score
Tags: argue, boyfriend, Cowboy, girlfriend, jealous, love, modern opera, mosey, night, reassuring, romantic, starry sky, stroll, Texas
The second opera of the pair opens with this idyllic outdoor scene at a luxurious beach vacation resort. Our protagonist, the young woman from “Project Eternity”, is sipping a fancy drink with her boyfriend and his parents at an open-air restaurant. The mood is set with a relaxing and then playful mix of strings, then oboe, then clarinet.
Her boyfriend’s parents then begin, simultaneously no less, to question the young woman about her faith, which they relate they find offensive. They sing these lines as a pretty, major-key duet which, together with their accusing words, represents their passive-aggressiveness.
Both the young woman and her boyfriend answer these pointed questions — he first, with a denial that she is even a Christian, but then she, with direct honesty.
The parents then proceed to snub her, making a thinly-veiled suggestion to their son that he date a different girl. They even suggest one in particular, whom he is aware already likes him. This new information to the young woman provokes a jealous look from her to him. His parents then continue giving their simplistic and unsolicited advice.
Tags: advice, argue, beach, beach resort, boyfriend, Christian, conversation, discussion, drink, girlfriend, idyllic, judgmental, modern opera, paradise, parents, relaxing, resort, warm summer day