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Jake Heggie
Jake Heggie was born in West Palm Beach, Florida and has made
AMERICAN CLASSICS
his home in San Francisco since 1993. Heggie has been drawn to
topics that reflect his passion for human rights and social justice (as
well as his love of literature), and his operas have been acclaimed Jake
for their emotional honesty and dramatic power. Those operas
include Moby-Dick (libretto by Gene Scheer), The End of the Affair
(libretto by Heather McDonald), and Dead Man Walking (libretto by
Terrence McNally). They have been performed on five continents,
HEGGIE
and by more than a dozen American opera companies that include
San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand
Opera, The Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Ft. Worth Opera,
Connection: Three Song Cycles
Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, and
Madison Opera. Heggie’s Great Scott, commissioned by Dallas Natural Selection • Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia • Eve-Song
Opera with story and libretto by McNally, will have its première in
October 2015. He has written more than 250 songs, as well as
orchestral, choral and chamber music. Recordings of Heggie’s
Regina Zona, Soprano • Kathleen Tagg, Piano
compositions include here/after (PentaTone Classics), At The
Statue of Venus (GPR), PASSING BY: Songs by Jake Heggie
(Avie), Dead Man Walking (Virgin Classics), Three Decembers
(Albany), Flesh and Stone (Americus), To Hell and Back
(Magnatune), The Faces of Love (RCA Red Seal), The Deepest
Desire (Kansas City Symphony), and For a Look or a Touch (Naxos
8.559379).

Photo: Ellen Appel

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Jake % Woe to Man ^ The Wound & The Farm

HEGGIE Woe to man The wound As I recollect

(b. 1961) Woe to man Reopened It was more like a farm
What can a man expect? Opens the tomb Than a garden.
Connection: Three Song Cycles What can a man expect? Her womb We all worked.
Think of all the riches, gifts, Quickens It was a nice farm.
Woman brings in her train, The woman Trees.
Natural Selection (1997) 18:15 Oh, Sickens Ev’rything grew.
1 Creation 3:04 Besides her obvious diff’rences And hungers Good soil
2 Animal Passion 3:55 (Inside out below the waist, Hugely And plenty of water.
3 Alas! Alack! 2:49 Bigger breasts, smaller brain)… The world in her belly No, it didn’t rain,
Can you think of any? The sky in her head We lived by the rivers.
4 Indian Summer – Blue 4:49
Anything? Limbs heavy The Tigris and the Euphrates.
5 Joy Alone (Connection) 3:39 Anything? She swells You might say
She is nothing She swells That’s where it all started.
Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999) 12:15 But trouble A drop of water
Oh nothing but trouble. Will not hold
6 Ophelia’s Song 2:55
Nothing. Let it go
7 Women Have Loved Before 3:26 Nothing. Let go Reprinted by permission.
8 Not in a Silver Casket 2:25 She is no thing. Let go
9 Spring 3:29 Ah! Not yet
You haven’t lived until Not yet
A man has said that to you. The new-formed baby
Eve-Song (1996) 28:09 Woman Will not let me
0 My Name 7:24 Because she was born of man. Let it go
! Even 3:13 Woe to man Just yet.
Because he is born of woman. What is already
@ Good 2:11
La da dee da dum. In that head?
# Listen 2:23 La da dee da da dum. Forget. Forget.
$ Snake 3:29 La la da deed um da. Forget. Forget.
% Woe to Man 4:06 Ah.
^ The Wound 2:56
& The Farm 2:27

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# Listen $ Snake Jake Heggie (b. 1961)

It’s entire body ripples back and forth like a sentence, Snake, is it true Natural Selection • Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia • Eve-Song
fascinating. About the fruit?
The American composer Jake Heggie is known primarily wanted the music to give them the opportunity to explore
My intuition tells me what you say about this fruit is true.
for his internationally acclaimed operas, including Moby- the many and complex facets of these women.”
Do you want to be like God? I’d like to find out, snake.
Dick, Dead Man Walking, At The Statue of Venus, and Heggie’s music reflects a wide range of influences. As
Do you want to be like God? I’d love to know.
Go ahead in front of me Three Decembers. But he has always been, first and he says: “In these songs, the singer encounters the full
How do you mean? Where I can see you. foremost, a devoted songwriter. To date, he has gamut of the influences I grew up with: folk music, jazz,
Be old and have a penis? I will follow you. composed more than 250 art songs as well as orchestral, pop, opera, musical theater, rock, art song. I encourage
I don’t think so. Oh! choral and chamber music. For poetry and texts, he has performers to embrace these elements in the songs and
The snake is in the tree. turned to an unusual range of writers, including Maya not shy away from them. If it feels jazzy, well, it probably is.”
Do you want to be like God? Where I cannot see him. Angelou, W.H. Auden, Charlene Baldridge, Raymond
Do you want to be like God? He is now the color of Shadows. Carver, Emily Dickinson, John Hall, A.E. Housman, Natural Selection (1997)
You know what I mean. Very few things are Galway Kinnell, Vachel Lindsay, Philip Littell, Armistead
As visible as I am Maupin, Terrence McNally, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sister Natural Selection is a set of five songs composed in 1997
Yes. I do. When I’m clean. Helen Prejean, Gini Savage, Gene Scheer, Vincent Van to poetry by the San Francisco Bay Area writer Gini
My entire body ripples up and down like a story. When a thing is visible, Gogh, Frederica von Stade, and Eugenia Zukerman. He Savage. The songs trace a young woman’s search for
I am listening. It always mean that the thing, has also, on occasion, set his own texts, as in the first identity, first breaking away from her parents (Creation) to
The tree frog, or that fruit, song of the cycle Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia. find her way in the world. The next part of her journey is a
means to be seen. His long-standing collaboration with writer Gene sexual awakening of desires and fantasies described in
Visibility’s Scheer has yielded several operas as well as numerous Animal Passion, set to jazzy riffs and tango rhythms. She
A warning song cycles, including Camille Claudel, Rise and Fall, wants to be reckless and unfettered, to experience wild
or Statuesque, A Question of Light, and Friendly Persuasions. abandon and passion – and imagines how thrilling it will
An invitation With the great American playwright Terrence McNally, he be. In Alas! Alack! she bemoans falling over and over
And it never tells you created Dead Man Walking – one of the most-performed again for the wrong guy; and in Indian Summer – Blue we
Which. new operas of our time – and is at work on Great Scott, find her actually married to the wrong guy: a real
What’s visible will either commissioned by The Dallas Opera for a première in 2015, Bluebeard. In Joy Alone (Connection), she at last finds
Feed you, starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. contentment and happiness where it has been all along:
Mate with you, This recording features three of Heggie’s early song within herself. Alone in nature, she revels in a peaceful,
Or kill you. cycles for soprano and piano: Natural Selection (1997), beautiful, vibrant connection to the earth.
Either way you gain Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999), and Eve-Song (1996).
Experience. Heggie states: “I wrote each of these cycles for a Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999)
Here goes. soprano who was an Adler Fellow at San Francisco
Sweet. Opera while I was the company’s staff writer, and before I In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Ophelia seems on the
Sour. wrote my first opera. Eve-Song was composed for Kristin surface a naïve, innocent, obedient young girl – used
Salty. Clayton, Natural Selection for Nicolle Foland, and Songs mercilessly as a pawn in the lives of the overbearing men
Bitter.
and Sonnets to Ophelia for Peggy Kriha-Dye ... and each around her. She doesn’t exhibit any typical heroine qualities,
And the taste of air,
work was premiered on a Schwabacher Debut Recital in yet she has great influence on the plot and subplots of the
Of rottenness,
San Francisco. I knew these singers so well as close, work. So while Ophelia doesn’t seem to have a voice,
Earth,
personal friends – and was able to give them a piece they without her the story would have been very different.
And water.
could really get inside and make their own. I wanted to In Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia, Heggie attempts to
Now I know.
give them strong, powerful, yet vulnerable women ... and give Ophelia her voice. Through the texts (three by the

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American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and one by the Eve is an old woman rocking her grandchild (also named EVE-SONG ! Even
composer), Ophelia exhibits the innocence and Eve) on a porch in the South … and the memories come Texts by Philip Littell (b.1950)
vulnerability of the character we know, but Heggie is quick flooding back. in the evening I am at peace.
to not peg her as a victim. Though she is indeed a tragic The second song, (Even) is one of beauty, sadness 0 My Name in the evening I hear ev’rything more clearly
victim of circumstance, she does not view herself with a and wonder as Eve sits beside a river and observes the ev’rything
victim mentality. Heggie states that, in his song cycle, world at sundown. A long, arching vocal line is Eve, Eve, must be the sound I made to the hearer all the world does sing
Ophelia has made the decision to take her life right from accompanied by a gently swirling piano figure – the as I was being made. with a ringing and a quickening
the beginning. Truth has brought her clarity. “She is very introduction of the winding, seductive snake motif that will Eve. Eve. Eve. overhead the birds wheel and turn
strong, smart and determined,” says Heggie. “And be developed in subsequent songs. Out I came, made up by a couple of men. overhead the setting sun
ultimately, the choice to kill herself is a way of exerting It was Eve’s job to name the animals of the newly Old man made me out of Adam’s rib… reddening no longer burns
some power and control in the world … so from her formed Earth, and Good is her light-hearted, joyful romp Oh, did he? at the water’s edge a wind brushes by me
perspective it is powerful, not sad or pathetic.” in not only naming them, but figuring out which ones are God made Adam with a susurration:
In the first song (Ophelia’s Song) she sings: “The best to eat. This leads her, inevitably, to the apple. God made Adam grass and leaves
spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.” In other words, Listen follows as the start of a deeper, sensual God flowers glow against the dark’ning trees
she is a prisoner of eternal optimism and hope, though awareness and awakening for Eve. There is a shiver and Adam eyesight and the light both go
surrounded by darkness and death. In the next two songs, shudder of excitement and anticipation as the snake’s God ev’ry evening the forest darkens
she remembers events that led her to her choice. Woman words entice and caress Eve’s imagination. Snake is the Damn it! in the evening my senses sharpen
Have Loved Before finds her overjoyed that she has full awakening of that imagination in a swinging tune that My children are going to know who their mother is. I have no peace at night
identified heroic, tragic women in literature who feel a introduces the freedom of jazz. Eve follows the snake as Eve. I have no peace at night
burning love as deeply and powerfully as she does, he leads her through shadow and light, and convinces her Mad bad Eve the amnesiac,
though the stories always end with the heroine’s death. In to bite the apple. With that bite comes a stunning Eve, Eve the nymphomaniac, @ Good
the song Not in a Silver Casket, Ophelia is finally able to awakening – and a range of tastes and feelings she had ME!
tell Hamlet the ways she loves him – as well as the ways never known, ranging from sweet, sour, salty and bitter to Was young man Adam completely unconscious Good Morning Whoever you are.
she does not. Her love rejected, she comes to the end of rotten. “Now I know,” she says. as I was manufactured? Good Morning. Do you have a name yet?
her journey in Spring. Disappointed, angry and frustrated Woe to Man is Eve’s stinging curse to all men, Did he groan and whimper EVE as I slipped out? Let me name you.
at the relentless, remorseless cycle of things, she at last performed as an old-fashioned, music-hall showcase. Did God mutter EVE as he slapped me into shape? It must be the right name
sees her helpless place in the world. Yet, with the final With her new knowledge, she also possesses an Did I scream EVE at the inevitable rape? So I don’t Forget.
“hum” of the song, she ends her life end with grace, awareness of how she is discriminated against, Or was EVE the last breath shaped into a sound What Shall I name you?
beauty and optimism. stereotyped, discounted and cast out. She cries out for all by my mother’s mouth as I came out? What Is your name?
women against this outrage. I was too little to save her or remember anything about I have not Eaten yet.
Eve-Song (1996) The Wound is a slow, tender lullaby about birth and her… Are you slow?
the sharing of legacy. It is the story of a single child, and Eve. Are you fleet?
Heggie approached the New York-born writer Philip Littell that of the entire human race. It leads to the final song in What are they trying to tell me with their stories? Are you obedient?
about a song cycle for soprano Kristin Clayton in 1995, the cycle (The Farm) in which Eve, as an old woman, tries I am allowed no clothing. Are you Good to eat?
and they decided to create a dramatic work that would to remember details about Eden. In Heggie’s words: “She I am allowed no shame. Mm..
offer a modern perspective on the biblical Eve. Heggie tries to find the words, the tune, the memory … and it is I have nothing to wear but my beautiful hair, Almost Ev’rything is good to eat.
has stated that a real singing actress is required for this difficult, because she has moved on without bitterness. My body, my face, MY NAME. Good morning.
large group of eight songs. In particular, the first song (My She chooses to remember the good, though a current of Eve. If I could I would eat the world
Name) requires vast, imaginative resources from a singer, sorrow and hurt will always be part of what makes her Because it’s Good.
as it alternately explores lullaby, recitative, arioso, a Kurt Eve.” Mm.
Weill parody, and a ballad. It is quixotic and hard to pin
down, just like Eve herself. In this song, Heggie imagines Kathleen Tagg, Regina Zona and Jake Heggie

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SONGS AND SONNETS TO OPHELIA 8 Not In a Silver Casket Regina Zona

Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
6 Ophelia’s Song Soprano Regina Zona has had a diverse career on the operatic and concert stage.
Text by Jake Heggie Not in a silver casket cool with pearls Her operatic repertoire includes the heroines of Strauss and Verdi: Ariadne in Ariadne
Or rich with red corundum or with blue, auf Naxos and Elisabetta in Don Carlo as well as some of the great verismo and
The hills are green, my dear one, Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls twentieth-century principal roles, including Tosca and Vanessa. She has performed
and blossoms are filling the air. Have given their loves, I give my love to you; leading roles with several companies including Sarasota Opera, Opera Theatre of St.
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there. Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring Louis, and Hawaii Opera Theatre and has been guest soloist with orchestras around
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain— the world including the Tokyo Symphony, Opera Orchestra of New York and the State
In this flowery field I’ll lay me Semper fidelis, where a secret spring Orchestra of Mexico. Regina Zona has also won numerous competitions including the
and dream of the open air. Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain: Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions and the Neue Stimmen
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there. Love in the open hand, no thing but that, Competition in Gütersloh, Germany. An avid recitalist, she specializes in the
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt, performance of American art song. In the summer of 2010, she completed an
Taste of the honey. Sip of the wine. As one should bring you cowslips in a hat American Song recital tour of South Africa, commemorating Samuel Barber’s
Pine for a chalice of gold. Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt, centenary year, with South African pianist, Kathleen Tagg. She continues to
I have a dear one and he is mine. I bring you, calling out as children do: concertize all over the United States.
Thicker than water. Water so cold. “Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”
Photo: Goran Stanic
In this flowery field I’ll lay me 9 Spring
and dream of the open air. Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.
To what purpose, April, do you return again? Kathleen Tagg
7 Women Have Loved Before Beauty is not enough.
Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) You can no longer quiet me with the redness Kathleen Tagg is a South African pianist, composer and producer who has lived in
Of little leaves opening stickily. New York since 2001. A 2014 South African Music Awards nominee for best classical
Women have loved before as I love now; I know what I know. album, she has performed on four continents with a host of leading musicians, and
At least, in lively chronicles of the past— The sun is hot on my neck as I observe co-founded the New York group SongFusion. Her numerous Carnegie Hall and
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow The spikes of the crocus. Lincoln Center performances have received high acclaim, but she is equally at home
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast The smell of the earth is good. in experimental venues or theater. Her performances and numerous recordings range
Much to their cost invaded—here and there, It is apparent that there is no death. from classical to world music, musical theater to her own music mixing improvisation
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest, But what does that signify? with fully realized scores. She has premièred countless works and holds the Helen
I find some woman bearing as I bear Not only under ground are the brains of men Cohn Award as outstanding Doctoral graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, as
Love like a burning city in the breast. Eaten by maggots. well as degrees from Mannes College and the University of Cape Town. Her
I think however that of all alive Life in itself recordings and arrangements have been featured in film and television, and her
I only in such utter, ancient way Is nothing, musical, Erika’s Wall, co-written with Sophie Jaff, was produced by The Music
Do suffer love; in me alone survive An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. Theater Company of Chicago.
The unregenerate passions of a day It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread, April
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed. Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Photo: Goran Stanic

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems © 1921, 1931, 1948, 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis.
Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society.

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NATURAL SELECTION 3 Alas! Alack! 4 Indian Summer – Blue 5 Joy Alone (Connection)
Texts by Gini Savage
Alas! Alack! When I was sixteen I had a red hot Chevy the stunning silence of myself
1 Creation I have a knack for falling for the wrong man Bucket seats, white top, the steering not too heavy from the hearts of forests
Cavaradossi or Don Ottavio were just too tame I loved that car like a child loves a pony middle of mountains
I give birth to myself I never seem to want to stick to my own script shoe-blacked its tires a late low sun rests her friendly hand
my own mother and father It’s the chain-smoking bad guy in leather my freedom to ride on the crowns of uncompromised trees
for years I ran like a clock-work mouse the one who’ll ruffle my feathers the most Now I am Bluebeard’s wife a fox streaks across the sand and scented sagebrush
Mama says, Papa says, who gets me I’d rather be Sleeping Beauty a chatter of chipmunks scatters
when does Goldilocks say I fear it’s a lack___Alas! “Honey, don’t open that door,” he says squirrels who stuff their briefcases for the winter
I am As Tosca I lost it over Scarpia though he gave me a master key blue collar workers long term plans
Driven not such a bad fella and I’ve peeked through the keyhole the resiny crunch of orange pine needles
I didn’t stop he had the power and a steady job always a guard on duty warm under foot
expected more from the umbilicus the better tune a red light and odor of rusty gardenia a windfall of sweet cones
never once got off the hook line or sinker so when they asked me to pick up the knife slips out from under the door joy alone
now before the world and dispatch him no bushes grow in the garden a startle of saplings
I reach out I demurred a saint’s blood smells of roses the power of trees
perhaps it was his theme song I preferred Blue was married before at least three times unraveling of rivers
2 Animal Passion I know there’s a lack___Alas! no family portraits and I don’t ask joy alone
If I were Oberon, I’d choose Puck, It’s so hot joy
Fierce as a bobcat’s spring for Pamina, it’s Papagena I get tired here in the east
with start-up speeds of sixty miles per hour If I’m Brünnhilde it’s bound to be Wotan I could doze away the days
I want a lover to sweep me off my feet on whom I’m stuck Blue thinks I’m too fat
and slide me into the gutter If Isolde were smitten by King Mark or Melot too this Reprinted by permission.
without the niceties of small-talk roses or champagne. would it make her a zealot? too that
I mean business. Damn! Mama says
I want whiskey I know there’s a lack___Alas! Curiosity killed...
I want to be swallowed whole, the Cat may well undo me.
I want tiles to spring off the walls
when we enter hotel rooms or afternoon apartments
I won’t pussy-foot around responsibility
“shoulds” and “oughts” are out for good.
And I don’t want to be a fat domestic cat
I want to be frantic,
yowls and growls to sound like the lion house
at feeding time
I don’t give a damn who hears,
I don’t give a damn!
no discreet eavesdroppers’ coughs can stop us
in our frenzy.
Let the voyeurs voient
and let the great cats come.

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NATURAL SELECTION 3 Alas! Alack! 4 Indian Summer – Blue 5 Joy Alone (Connection)
Texts by Gini Savage
Alas! Alack! When I was sixteen I had a red hot Chevy the stunning silence of myself
1 Creation I have a knack for falling for the wrong man Bucket seats, white top, the steering not too heavy from the hearts of forests
Cavaradossi or Don Ottavio were just too tame I loved that car like a child loves a pony middle of mountains
I give birth to myself I never seem to want to stick to my own script shoe-blacked its tires a late low sun rests her friendly hand
my own mother and father It’s the chain-smoking bad guy in leather my freedom to ride on the crowns of uncompromised trees
for years I ran like a clock-work mouse the one who’ll ruffle my feathers the most Now I am Bluebeard’s wife a fox streaks across the sand and scented sagebrush
Mama says, Papa says, who gets me I’d rather be Sleeping Beauty a chatter of chipmunks scatters
when does Goldilocks say I fear it’s a lack___Alas! “Honey, don’t open that door,” he says squirrels who stuff their briefcases for the winter
I am As Tosca I lost it over Scarpia though he gave me a master key blue collar workers long term plans
Driven not such a bad fella and I’ve peeked through the keyhole the resiny crunch of orange pine needles
I didn’t stop he had the power and a steady job always a guard on duty warm under foot
expected more from the umbilicus the better tune a red light and odor of rusty gardenia a windfall of sweet cones
never once got off the hook line or sinker so when they asked me to pick up the knife slips out from under the door joy alone
now before the world and dispatch him no bushes grow in the garden a startle of saplings
I reach out I demurred a saint’s blood smells of roses the power of trees
perhaps it was his theme song I preferred Blue was married before at least three times unraveling of rivers
2 Animal Passion I know there’s a lack___Alas! no family portraits and I don’t ask joy alone
If I were Oberon, I’d choose Puck, It’s so hot joy
Fierce as a bobcat’s spring for Pamina, it’s Papagena I get tired here in the east
with start-up speeds of sixty miles per hour If I’m Brünnhilde it’s bound to be Wotan I could doze away the days
I want a lover to sweep me off my feet on whom I’m stuck Blue thinks I’m too fat
and slide me into the gutter If Isolde were smitten by King Mark or Melot too this Reprinted by permission.
without the niceties of small-talk roses or champagne. would it make her a zealot? too that
I mean business. Damn! Mama says
I want whiskey I know there’s a lack___Alas! Curiosity killed...
I want to be swallowed whole, the Cat may well undo me.
I want tiles to spring off the walls
when we enter hotel rooms or afternoon apartments
I won’t pussy-foot around responsibility
“shoulds” and “oughts” are out for good.
And I don’t want to be a fat domestic cat
I want to be frantic,
yowls and growls to sound like the lion house
at feeding time
I don’t give a damn who hears,
I don’t give a damn!
no discreet eavesdroppers’ coughs can stop us
in our frenzy.
Let the voyeurs voient
and let the great cats come.

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SONGS AND SONNETS TO OPHELIA 8 Not In a Silver Casket Regina Zona

Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
6 Ophelia’s Song Soprano Regina Zona has had a diverse career on the operatic and concert stage.
Text by Jake Heggie Not in a silver casket cool with pearls Her operatic repertoire includes the heroines of Strauss and Verdi: Ariadne in Ariadne
Or rich with red corundum or with blue, auf Naxos and Elisabetta in Don Carlo as well as some of the great verismo and
The hills are green, my dear one, Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls twentieth-century principal roles, including Tosca and Vanessa. She has performed
and blossoms are filling the air. Have given their loves, I give my love to you; leading roles with several companies including Sarasota Opera, Opera Theatre of St.
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there. Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring Louis, and Hawaii Opera Theatre and has been guest soloist with orchestras around
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain— the world including the Tokyo Symphony, Opera Orchestra of New York and the State
In this flowery field I’ll lay me Semper fidelis, where a secret spring Orchestra of Mexico. Regina Zona has also won numerous competitions including the
and dream of the open air. Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain: Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions and the Neue Stimmen
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there. Love in the open hand, no thing but that, Competition in Gütersloh, Germany. An avid recitalist, she specializes in the
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt, performance of American art song. In the summer of 2010, she completed an
Taste of the honey. Sip of the wine. As one should bring you cowslips in a hat American Song recital tour of South Africa, commemorating Samuel Barber’s
Pine for a chalice of gold. Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt, centenary year, with South African pianist, Kathleen Tagg. She continues to
I have a dear one and he is mine. I bring you, calling out as children do: concertize all over the United States.
Thicker than water. Water so cold. “Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”
Photo: Goran Stanic
In this flowery field I’ll lay me 9 Spring
and dream of the open air. Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.
To what purpose, April, do you return again? Kathleen Tagg
7 Women Have Loved Before Beauty is not enough.
Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) You can no longer quiet me with the redness Kathleen Tagg is a South African pianist, composer and producer who has lived in
Of little leaves opening stickily. New York since 2001. A 2014 South African Music Awards nominee for best classical
Women have loved before as I love now; I know what I know. album, she has performed on four continents with a host of leading musicians, and
At least, in lively chronicles of the past— The sun is hot on my neck as I observe co-founded the New York group SongFusion. Her numerous Carnegie Hall and
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow The spikes of the crocus. Lincoln Center performances have received high acclaim, but she is equally at home
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast The smell of the earth is good. in experimental venues or theater. Her performances and numerous recordings range
Much to their cost invaded—here and there, It is apparent that there is no death. from classical to world music, musical theater to her own music mixing improvisation
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest, But what does that signify? with fully realized scores. She has premièred countless works and holds the Helen
I find some woman bearing as I bear Not only under ground are the brains of men Cohn Award as outstanding Doctoral graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, as
Love like a burning city in the breast. Eaten by maggots. well as degrees from Mannes College and the University of Cape Town. Her
I think however that of all alive Life in itself recordings and arrangements have been featured in film and television, and her
I only in such utter, ancient way Is nothing, musical, Erika’s Wall, co-written with Sophie Jaff, was produced by The Music
Do suffer love; in me alone survive An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. Theater Company of Chicago.
The unregenerate passions of a day It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread, April
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed. Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Photo: Goran Stanic

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems © 1921, 1931, 1948, 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis.
Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, The Millay Society.

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American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and one by the Eve is an old woman rocking her grandchild (also named EVE-SONG ! Even
composer), Ophelia exhibits the innocence and Eve) on a porch in the South … and the memories come Texts by Philip Littell (b.1950)
vulnerability of the character we know, but Heggie is quick flooding back. in the evening I am at peace.
to not peg her as a victim. Though she is indeed a tragic The second song, (Even) is one of beauty, sadness 0 My Name in the evening I hear ev’rything more clearly
victim of circumstance, she does not view herself with a and wonder as Eve sits beside a river and observes the ev’rything
victim mentality. Heggie states that, in his song cycle, world at sundown. A long, arching vocal line is Eve, Eve, must be the sound I made to the hearer all the world does sing
Ophelia has made the decision to take her life right from accompanied by a gently swirling piano figure – the as I was being made. with a ringing and a quickening
the beginning. Truth has brought her clarity. “She is very introduction of the winding, seductive snake motif that will Eve. Eve. Eve. overhead the birds wheel and turn
strong, smart and determined,” says Heggie. “And be developed in subsequent songs. Out I came, made up by a couple of men. overhead the setting sun
ultimately, the choice to kill herself is a way of exerting It was Eve’s job to name the animals of the newly Old man made me out of Adam’s rib… reddening no longer burns
some power and control in the world … so from her formed Earth, and Good is her light-hearted, joyful romp Oh, did he? at the water’s edge a wind brushes by me
perspective it is powerful, not sad or pathetic.” in not only naming them, but figuring out which ones are God made Adam with a susurration:
In the first song (Ophelia’s Song) she sings: “The best to eat. This leads her, inevitably, to the apple. God made Adam grass and leaves
spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.” In other words, Listen follows as the start of a deeper, sensual God flowers glow against the dark’ning trees
she is a prisoner of eternal optimism and hope, though awareness and awakening for Eve. There is a shiver and Adam eyesight and the light both go
surrounded by darkness and death. In the next two songs, shudder of excitement and anticipation as the snake’s God ev’ry evening the forest darkens
she remembers events that led her to her choice. Woman words entice and caress Eve’s imagination. Snake is the Damn it! in the evening my senses sharpen
Have Loved Before finds her overjoyed that she has full awakening of that imagination in a swinging tune that My children are going to know who their mother is. I have no peace at night
identified heroic, tragic women in literature who feel a introduces the freedom of jazz. Eve follows the snake as Eve. I have no peace at night
burning love as deeply and powerfully as she does, he leads her through shadow and light, and convinces her Mad bad Eve the amnesiac,
though the stories always end with the heroine’s death. In to bite the apple. With that bite comes a stunning Eve, Eve the nymphomaniac, @ Good
the song Not in a Silver Casket, Ophelia is finally able to awakening – and a range of tastes and feelings she had ME!
tell Hamlet the ways she loves him – as well as the ways never known, ranging from sweet, sour, salty and bitter to Was young man Adam completely unconscious Good Morning Whoever you are.
she does not. Her love rejected, she comes to the end of rotten. “Now I know,” she says. as I was manufactured? Good Morning. Do you have a name yet?
her journey in Spring. Disappointed, angry and frustrated Woe to Man is Eve’s stinging curse to all men, Did he groan and whimper EVE as I slipped out? Let me name you.
at the relentless, remorseless cycle of things, she at last performed as an old-fashioned, music-hall showcase. Did God mutter EVE as he slapped me into shape? It must be the right name
sees her helpless place in the world. Yet, with the final With her new knowledge, she also possesses an Did I scream EVE at the inevitable rape? So I don’t Forget.
“hum” of the song, she ends her life end with grace, awareness of how she is discriminated against, Or was EVE the last breath shaped into a sound What Shall I name you?
beauty and optimism. stereotyped, discounted and cast out. She cries out for all by my mother’s mouth as I came out? What Is your name?
women against this outrage. I was too little to save her or remember anything about I have not Eaten yet.
Eve-Song (1996) The Wound is a slow, tender lullaby about birth and her… Are you slow?
the sharing of legacy. It is the story of a single child, and Eve. Are you fleet?
Heggie approached the New York-born writer Philip Littell that of the entire human race. It leads to the final song in What are they trying to tell me with their stories? Are you obedient?
about a song cycle for soprano Kristin Clayton in 1995, the cycle (The Farm) in which Eve, as an old woman, tries I am allowed no clothing. Are you Good to eat?
and they decided to create a dramatic work that would to remember details about Eden. In Heggie’s words: “She I am allowed no shame. Mm..
offer a modern perspective on the biblical Eve. Heggie tries to find the words, the tune, the memory … and it is I have nothing to wear but my beautiful hair, Almost Ev’rything is good to eat.
has stated that a real singing actress is required for this difficult, because she has moved on without bitterness. My body, my face, MY NAME. Good morning.
large group of eight songs. In particular, the first song (My She chooses to remember the good, though a current of Eve. If I could I would eat the world
Name) requires vast, imaginative resources from a singer, sorrow and hurt will always be part of what makes her Because it’s Good.
as it alternately explores lullaby, recitative, arioso, a Kurt Eve.” Mm.
Weill parody, and a ballad. It is quixotic and hard to pin
down, just like Eve herself. In this song, Heggie imagines Kathleen Tagg, Regina Zona and Jake Heggie

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# Listen $ Snake Jake Heggie (b. 1961)

It’s entire body ripples back and forth like a sentence, Snake, is it true Natural Selection • Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia • Eve-Song
fascinating. About the fruit?
The American composer Jake Heggie is known primarily wanted the music to give them the opportunity to explore
My intuition tells me what you say about this fruit is true.
for his internationally acclaimed operas, including Moby- the many and complex facets of these women.”
Do you want to be like God? I’d like to find out, snake.
Dick, Dead Man Walking, At The Statue of Venus, and Heggie’s music reflects a wide range of influences. As
Do you want to be like God? I’d love to know.
Go ahead in front of me Three Decembers. But he has always been, first and he says: “In these songs, the singer encounters the full
How do you mean? Where I can see you. foremost, a devoted songwriter. To date, he has gamut of the influences I grew up with: folk music, jazz,
Be old and have a penis? I will follow you. composed more than 250 art songs as well as orchestral, pop, opera, musical theater, rock, art song. I encourage
I don’t think so. Oh! choral and chamber music. For poetry and texts, he has performers to embrace these elements in the songs and
The snake is in the tree. turned to an unusual range of writers, including Maya not shy away from them. If it feels jazzy, well, it probably is.”
Do you want to be like God? Where I cannot see him. Angelou, W.H. Auden, Charlene Baldridge, Raymond
Do you want to be like God? He is now the color of Shadows. Carver, Emily Dickinson, John Hall, A.E. Housman, Natural Selection (1997)
You know what I mean. Very few things are Galway Kinnell, Vachel Lindsay, Philip Littell, Armistead
As visible as I am Maupin, Terrence McNally, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sister Natural Selection is a set of five songs composed in 1997
Yes. I do. When I’m clean. Helen Prejean, Gini Savage, Gene Scheer, Vincent Van to poetry by the San Francisco Bay Area writer Gini
My entire body ripples up and down like a story. When a thing is visible, Gogh, Frederica von Stade, and Eugenia Zukerman. He Savage. The songs trace a young woman’s search for
I am listening. It always mean that the thing, has also, on occasion, set his own texts, as in the first identity, first breaking away from her parents (Creation) to
The tree frog, or that fruit, song of the cycle Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia. find her way in the world. The next part of her journey is a
means to be seen. His long-standing collaboration with writer Gene sexual awakening of desires and fantasies described in
Visibility’s Scheer has yielded several operas as well as numerous Animal Passion, set to jazzy riffs and tango rhythms. She
A warning song cycles, including Camille Claudel, Rise and Fall, wants to be reckless and unfettered, to experience wild
or Statuesque, A Question of Light, and Friendly Persuasions. abandon and passion – and imagines how thrilling it will
An invitation With the great American playwright Terrence McNally, he be. In Alas! Alack! she bemoans falling over and over
And it never tells you created Dead Man Walking – one of the most-performed again for the wrong guy; and in Indian Summer – Blue we
Which. new operas of our time – and is at work on Great Scott, find her actually married to the wrong guy: a real
What’s visible will either commissioned by The Dallas Opera for a première in 2015, Bluebeard. In Joy Alone (Connection), she at last finds
Feed you, starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. contentment and happiness where it has been all along:
Mate with you, This recording features three of Heggie’s early song within herself. Alone in nature, she revels in a peaceful,
Or kill you. cycles for soprano and piano: Natural Selection (1997), beautiful, vibrant connection to the earth.
Either way you gain Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999), and Eve-Song (1996).
Experience. Heggie states: “I wrote each of these cycles for a Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999)
Here goes. soprano who was an Adler Fellow at San Francisco
Sweet. Opera while I was the company’s staff writer, and before I In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Ophelia seems on the
Sour. wrote my first opera. Eve-Song was composed for Kristin surface a naïve, innocent, obedient young girl – used
Salty. Clayton, Natural Selection for Nicolle Foland, and Songs mercilessly as a pawn in the lives of the overbearing men
Bitter.
and Sonnets to Ophelia for Peggy Kriha-Dye ... and each around her. She doesn’t exhibit any typical heroine qualities,
And the taste of air,
work was premiered on a Schwabacher Debut Recital in yet she has great influence on the plot and subplots of the
Of rottenness,
San Francisco. I knew these singers so well as close, work. So while Ophelia doesn’t seem to have a voice,
Earth,
personal friends – and was able to give them a piece they without her the story would have been very different.
And water.
could really get inside and make their own. I wanted to In Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia, Heggie attempts to
Now I know.
give them strong, powerful, yet vulnerable women ... and give Ophelia her voice. Through the texts (three by the

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Jake % Woe to Man ^ The Wound & The Farm

HEGGIE Woe to man The wound As I recollect

(b. 1961) Woe to man Reopened It was more like a farm
What can a man expect? Opens the tomb Than a garden.
Connection: Three Song Cycles What can a man expect? Her womb We all worked.
Think of all the riches, gifts, Quickens It was a nice farm.
Woman brings in her train, The woman Trees.
Natural Selection (1997) 18:15 Oh, Sickens Ev’rything grew.
1 Creation 3:04 Besides her obvious diff’rences And hungers Good soil
2 Animal Passion 3:55 (Inside out below the waist, Hugely And plenty of water.
3 Alas! Alack! 2:49 Bigger breasts, smaller brain)… The world in her belly No, it didn’t rain,
Can you think of any? The sky in her head We lived by the rivers.
4 Indian Summer – Blue 4:49
Anything? Limbs heavy The Tigris and the Euphrates.
5 Joy Alone (Connection) 3:39 Anything? She swells You might say
She is nothing She swells That’s where it all started.
Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia (1999) 12:15 But trouble A drop of water
Oh nothing but trouble. Will not hold
6 Ophelia’s Song 2:55
Nothing. Let it go
7 Women Have Loved Before 3:26 Nothing. Let go Reprinted by permission.
8 Not in a Silver Casket 2:25 She is no thing. Let go
9 Spring 3:29 Ah! Not yet
You haven’t lived until Not yet
A man has said that to you. The new-formed baby
Eve-Song (1996) 28:09 Woman Will not let me
0 My Name 7:24 Because she was born of man. Let it go
! Even 3:13 Woe to man Just yet.
Because he is born of woman. What is already
@ Good 2:11
La da dee da dum. In that head?
# Listen 2:23 La da dee da da dum. Forget. Forget.
$ Snake 3:29 La la da deed um da. Forget. Forget.
% Woe to Man 4:06 Ah.
^ The Wound 2:56
& The Farm 2:27

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Jake Heggie
Jake Heggie was born in West Palm Beach, Florida and has made
AMERICAN CLASSICS
his home in San Francisco since 1993. Heggie has been drawn to
topics that reflect his passion for human rights and social justice (as
well as his love of literature), and his operas have been acclaimed Jake
for their emotional honesty and dramatic power. Those operas
include Moby-Dick (libretto by Gene Scheer), The End of the Affair
(libretto by Heather McDonald), and Dead Man Walking (libretto by
Terrence McNally). They have been performed on five continents,
HEGGIE
and by more than a dozen American opera companies that include
San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand
Opera, The Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Ft. Worth Opera,
Connection: Three Song Cycles
Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, and
Madison Opera. Heggie’s Great Scott, commissioned by Dallas Natural Selection • Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia • Eve-Song
Opera with story and libretto by McNally, will have its première in
October 2015. He has written more than 250 songs, as well as
orchestral, choral and chamber music. Recordings of Heggie’s
Regina Zona, Soprano • Kathleen Tagg, Piano
compositions include here/after (PentaTone Classics), At The
Statue of Venus (GPR), PASSING BY: Songs by Jake Heggie
(Avie), Dead Man Walking (Virgin Classics), Three Decembers
(Albany), Flesh and Stone (Americus), To Hell and Back
(Magnatune), The Faces of Love (RCA Red Seal), The Deepest
Desire (Kansas City Symphony), and For a Look or a Touch (Naxos
8.559379).

Photo: Ellen Appel

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