Black River, A Wisconsin Idyll by Conrad Susa Choir - Sheet Music

SKU: EC.4206

UPC: 600313442063. 9 x 12 inches. Text: Richard Street, Conrad Susa.

Libretto:
Written by Richard Street and Conrad Susa

Synopsis:
Grand Opera in 3 Acts with a Prologue. The opera presents vignettes relating the stories of three women, their lives, and their losses at the foot of the Black River. Clara, preoccupied with the memory of her infant son's death by drowning in the Black River 12 years earlier, sews a quilt and dulls her despair with the aid of a cocaine-based medicine. Lucy, her step-daughter, is engaged to marry a man she does not love. Pauline, living in the state mental hospital, mourns the passing of her career as an opera singer and the estranged relationship between herself and her son. Soon after Lucy and Ben are married, Ben dies, leaving Lucy, who has just begun to truly love her husband, alone and pregnant. Their wedding is transformed into a funeral. Pauline reconciles with her son and leaves the hospital and Black River Falls forever. Lucy also departs, in hopes of finding a better life elsewhere. Clara, having finished her quilt, takes it to the banks of the river, saturates it with kerosene, and sets it and her body on fire.