The work of local composer, Gabriella Snyder, will be featured with a costumed performance of excerpts from her one-act music drama, The Rough-Face Girl: An Algonquin Cinderella, as well as a selection of her choral anthems for use in worship.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

3:00pm

Melrose Unitarian Universalist Church

70 West Emerson Street

Melrose, MA 02148

Admission: free will offering at the door benefits the scholarship fund

Reception follows

Narrator: Jill Goldman

Rough-Face Girl: Deirdre Tisdale, soprano

Mahtigwess (The Great Rabbit trickster): Lara Fox, mezzo-soprano

Mother: Bethany Tammaro Condon, mezzo-soprano

Medicine Woman (the Invisible Being’s sister): Gabriella Snyder, mezzo-soprano

Chorus for Anthems:

Sopranos: Lara Fox, Jill Goldman, Karin Nystrom

Altos: Eileen Christiansen, Bethany Tammaro Condon

Baritones: Mike Harris, Clifford Liberman 

Accompanist: John Montanus, piano

Snyder began writing The Rough-Face Girl after being inspired by Native American music and culture while visiting the Grand Canyon in 2006. The Lynn-based theatre company, Mass Theatrica, premiered the show in October 2009 in Lynn and Malden. The Rough-Face Girl is the story of a Native American girl, her face burned and scarred from tending the fire, who sees things that others can't, and who goes on a quest to marry the Invistible Being, finding healing in the process. Because only the woman who can see the Invisible Being can marry him, the Rough-Face Girl devotes herself to the vision quest, solving riddles, and overcoming adversity and ridicule.

In the mid-90s Snyder had been searching for a timeless story idea among fairy tales and stories from the ancient mythology of many cultures. She stumbled upon “The Rough-Face Girl” which had been published as a beautifully illustrated children’s book. At that time she couldn’t find a lyricist to work with, so she shelved the idea and went on to another project, finally deciding in 2006 to write the lyrics herself.

One of the things that attracted Snyder to The Rough-Face Girl, a story from the Algonquin tribe of Lake Ontario, was that a quest requiring wisdom and courage is undertaken by a female protagonist, whereas this role is usually undertaken by young men in many myths and fairy tales. It is also not the typical Cinderella tale, in which the boy and girl fall in love and are finally united after overcoming confusions and obstacles. In this story, the Invisible Being does not 'fall in love' with her because she's so beautiful physically. In fact, we know that her face and skin are rough and scarred and her hair is burned from tending the fire. What does he see in her? He will only marry the woman who can see him, who has vision, wisdom. What does Rough-Face Girl see in him? He is rich and powerful, but she doesn't see the superficial things like her sisters do: what people look like or wear. She sees the heart of things, their nature, their truth. She discerns that the essence of the Invisible Being is nature, the Milky Way, the rainbow. And so it’s because of her wisdom and desire for the truth that she is blessed and prospers.

One of the songs featured in the excerpt concert is “Singing dreams.” While doing research to write the opera, Snyder found this beautiful poem of the Paiute and turned it into Rough-Face Girl’s lament when her sisters ridicule the way she looks:

            “Now all my singing dreams are gone

            But none knows where they are fled

            Nor by what trail they have left me.

            Return, O dreams of my heart,

            And sing in the summer twilight,

            By the creek and the almond thicket

            And the field that is bordered with lupines!”

Another song featured in the concert is “The mighty Bobcat hunted me for days”, sung by the character of Mahtigwess, or the Great Rabbit, describing her exploits in outwitting Bobcat. Mahtigwess is a trickster who has m’teoulin (great magic), similar to the trickster Kokopelli of tribes in the American Southwest. In The Rough-Face Girl, Mahtigwess appears like the Fairy Godmother in the Cinderella story to give wisdom and guidance to the heroine when she’s in doubt.

Travelin' Light
Travelin Light is 3 singers, Steve Provizer, Ed Meradith & Gabriella Snyder, with Nick Grondin on guitar, Steve on trombone & keys, and Ed on bass & keys. We sing jazz harmony versions of standards and originals (from Zappa to Gershwin): theatrical and fun; moving and flip; daring and sometimes comforting, but never cliched.

Stay tuned for upcoming appearances.