A daughter, Tiny, was born, but her parents' marriage was unhappy, and she and Carrie left home. The Narrator describes how Paul went wife-hunting, found an appropriately sized partner (Carrie), and married her (" The Spring came and the Summer and Fall"). Inkslinger, equally defeated, returns and accepts the job of book-keeper. Paul introduces a "dream of warning", sung by a quartet of the defeated (" Gold in the North came the blizzard to say"). Sam and Ben recruit cats Moppet and Poppet, and the dog Fido, to aid them in their work (" The single creature lives a partial life"). Paul predicts that, as Inkslinger has no resources, he will have to return. Johnny Inkslinger, an impecunious book-keeper, also turns up, but wishes to be independent and refuses offers of soup, beans and recompense before travelling on. Bad cooks Sam and Ben, devotees (respectively) of soup and beans, arrive (" Sam for Soups, Ben for beans", a parody of campaigns): However, there is still a need for some cooks who can provide the lumberjacks with nutritious food. The Swedes quarrel over which of them should be foreman, but a Western Union Boy bicycles in with a telegram from the King of Sweden, whose recommended foreman, Hel Helson, arrives and is duly appointed by Paul. Paul recruits lumberjacks from all over Europe (" My birthplace was in Sweden, it's a very long way off"). The two of them leave for the South, where Paul sets up a camp. One night, he awoke to find that his forehead was being licked by Babe the Blue Cow. The Narrator recounts the birth and growth of Paul, who gained 346 pounds every week, became as tall as the Empire State Building and had a stride of 3.7 miles (" The cold wind blew through the crooked thorn"). To the horror of the old trees, the moon turns blue (" It isn't very often the conservatives are wrong"). The geese explain that the old trees will have to leave when a Man arrives: Paul Bunyan will be born at the next blue moon. The old trees like life to be slow (" Since the birth Of the earth"), but are challenged by four young trees and three wild geese. Synopsis Place: In and around the American forest Time: Early- to mid- twentieth century Prologue Lumberjacks, farmers, frontier women, animals, trees, wild geese Narrator and Balladeer (in the Interludes) The work is strongly sectional in nature, highly reminiscent of the 'Broadway musical' style of the period. The story is based on the folkloric American lumberjack, Paul Bunyan, with the music incorporating a variety of American styles, including folk songs, blues and hymns. Britten revised it somewhat in 1976 and it has subsequently had numerous performances and two commercial recordings. It premiered at Columbia University on, to largely negative reviews, and was withdrawn by the composer. Auden, designed for performance by semi-professional groups. My hope is that this project helps shed the "men sing this, women sing that" attitude.Paul Bunyan, Op 17, is an operetta in two acts and a prologue composed by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by W. I believe by reframing the pieces with visuals that show a more vulnerable male emotionality and a queer-male experience, it could show that these texts and pieces can be interpreted to mean many different things. The pieces are vulnerable and sensitive, which are qualities not typically associated with male emotionality. Somewhere in the century and a half that followed, songs began being assigned to a gender using arguments based on the sentiment, emotion or pronouns. Frauenliebe was originally premiered by a Baritone. The art song recital, in its earlier days, was a more gender-neutral space. I still, to this day, get guff when I bring it to some coaches. When I was coaching the piece in preparation for the performance, I had a lot of pushback from some male coaches saying I wasn’t performing it like women do, and that it was missing femininity. I performed the cycle years ago in which I interspersed pieces from Schumann’s Dichterliebe. I really connect with the texts and the story it’s telling. The ultimate goal of this project is to challenge toxic masculinity both in North American culture and in classical music.įrauenliebe und Leben has been a piece close to my heart. My project is to make a short film of Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben (A Woman’s life and love) which will culminate as a series of visuals set over the music.
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