PROGRAM NOTES
Oriana's Lament

Adapted from A Knight Errant and His Dowdy Deeds: The Story of Amadis of Gaul. Published in 1911 by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

Oriana's Lament is in two parts--the first is a letter that Oriana sends to the knight Amadis when she has been told that he is championing another woman. In it she tells the knight that she feels betrayed and to stay away. Unfortunately, Oriana's imformant was wrong; Amadis had remained faithful to her and, when he read her accusations, hid himself away as a hermit. In the second part, Oriana has sent one of her servants to find Amadis and beg him to return.


Paths

Paths is a work about man's search for identity and meaning. It shows the futility felt by many as they search for self-achievement as well as the senselessness of others' goals as seen by the narrator. The text is by David N. Eadington who was a graduate student in comparative literature at U.C.L.A.

Synopsis:

As the opera begins, the narrator is strolling along a path. He soon encounters an old man wandering in a seperate, circulat path. WHen asked why he remains on this path, the old man replies, "God chose this path for me, and I must follow it for all my days." The religious man does not comprehend that his path to heaven leads nowhere.

Next the narrator encounters two men who chase one another woth drawn swords. When asked why he is running, the first man declares that he is superior and should own what the other man owns. He plans to claim ownership through force. The second man, when asked why he runs, tells the narrator that he is afraid and is running from death. So the mens' greed and fear feed on each other, and both remain in fruitless chase.

Then the narrator encounters two workers - one digging a hole, another filling it up. These two are following orders; they do not think or act for themselves in any way. Tha narrator soon leaves and encounters a man running around a woman. This man is running the path of hopeless, blind love. He wants the woman's love, but dares not approach her directly. So he runs because she has told him she likes to watch him run. Timidity rules the heart of this lover.

Finally, the narrator meets a man chasing his image in a mirror. The mirror constantly retreats from him. This man is sure that the image holds the secret to discovering himself - to internal peace. His quest for inner peace is hopeless so long as he continues to seek it in external things. He strives for the unattainable.

As he ponders these meetings, the narrator completes one circuit of his own circular path and passes the old religious man again. This time, however, he is engrossed in his own search for meaning in life; he continues unheeding down his own endless path.

You may notice that I pretty much quit writing for a period after 1992. I had just finished my Master's Degree Thesis (Cult Costa?), and got into a fairly deep rut of clinical depression. I also met and married my husband, got a job as a secretary, and generally found myself with NO time to write.

If you would be interested in renting any of the above or in commissioning a new work, please e-mail me (elidavis AT beamrider DOT com) with details like instrumentation, difficulty, flashiness, etc. and we can talk $$. I promise I'll be as reasonable as you are... I was once a starving college student myself!