BAYAHA is a new opera about two sisters who have drifted apart as glaciers melt, one to the South and one to the North—and a wayfarer who descends to the depths to comb the sister’s hair free of the pollution that has gathered in it.
Workshop performance at the Frida Kahlo Theater, Los Angeles, on December 7, 2024.
Produced by Overtone Industries Original Vision incubator project.
Ruth Margraff, Libretto
Richard Marriott, Composition
O-Lan Jones, Direction
Fahad Siadat, Music Direction
Brightwork Ensemble
Sharon Chohi Kim, Mezzo. Goddess of the Southern Ocean
Scott Graff, Baritone. Wayfarer
Kion Heidari, Tenor. Intermediator between the Goddess & the Wayfarer
Molly Pease, Soprano. Sister Goddess of the Northern Ocean
Video: Nicholas Casillas
Lighting Design: Omar Madkour
Set Design: Buddy System (Eileen Boylan & Kati Rediger)
This Bahaya workshop score consists of four composed sections and one improvised interlude. “Wayfarer in the Green Land” opens with the Goddess of the Southern Ocean commanding the Wayfarer-Hero-Colonialist to travel to the arctic and descend into the depths to comb the hair of her sister, the Goddess of the Greenland Sea. His virtuosic answer (0:53) covers the extremes of the baritone range. He is joined by the messenger sent by the Goddess, a bird, and they perform a duet (2:25) in a hocketed Balinese technique called “kotekan”.
In “Descent” (4:54) they are swept into the depths of the ocean and sing a word salad inspired in equal measures by the Balinese dance-drama “Garuda” and the Los Angeles punk band “X”. At the end of the ”Descent” the heaven opens up, revealing the Goddesses and their attendants, (ideally accompanied by renaissance trumpets). An improvised interlude follows (8:58)
“Combing her Hair” (11:51) the sisters subtly snipe at each other in a style equally influenced by Indonesian “Arja” and Miles Davis over harmonies derived from Balinese Gong Kebyar and Gong Angklung, the alternating gong tones on the LH of the piano.
The final piece “Sea of Annihilation” (18:08) is a devotional choral piece written in the North Indian raga “Malkauns”, a raga of the deepest night of the soul.
LIBRETTO
Wayfarer in the Green Land
(Ice, glaciers, flecks of green wine blue submerged in the melt, arriving
fishing boat with WAYFARER and BIRD)
GODDESS
…now the ice
is melting
islands disappearing
my sister’s sea is sick
her sky is angry
go to her now
across the seven seas.
WAYFARER
I thought I could command you when you were fatherless.
You knew my name was ugly but I couldn’t forget you.
I stole from your shores until the birds flew away. I took your comb and you
came near my face. You spit out what I killed
and said you would no longer help me.
BIRD & WAYFARER
You put feathers between your fingers and flew (repeat)
You you flew (repeat)
BIRD
Streaks of sick blue fault line fog afar
to the distance further to further further further
WAYFARER
I know what I’ve done, I know what I’ve done
Your face in every river-gleaming-salmon
BIRD
Ask for mercy now, for mercy now sky so pure only only only
WAYFARER
I could look look through the back of your mouth to the stones
below your mouth the stones below
BIRD
Sky only faultline fog afar gray blue
only streaks of blue sick blue green and blue gray
WAYFARER
Only sick further afar streaks of blue
wine dark wine dragging further distance distance
BIRD
Sea only sicker fog faultline sick blue
if I can see through your mouth to the river/
WAYFARER
If I ask mercy to receive I beg you
if I ask mercy if I’m begging mercy
BIRD
Streaks of sick blue fault line fog afar to the
distance the distance further further further
WAYFARER
I know what I’ve done, I know what I’ve done
Your face in every river-gleaming-salmon
WAYFARER
I followed only you in every sea.
I have arrived and will descend into the depths
WAYFARER & BIRD
To comb the hair of your sister
Hair of your sister
Hair of your sister
(WAYFARER descends in a trance becoming a bird-like SHAMAN)
DESCENT
(strands of seaweed fall to bottom of the sea, voice processed, fractured
languages and spirits)
SHAMAN VOICE (BIRD & WAYFARER)
children of water
microplastic young lung meatprint
sweat security applause
align to the advantage
homicidal hamstrung sovereignty that’s booming
hemorrhage and comply
to wealth pollution violence to value
blackout tinpan cross-corrected wage
apology sector cash lush womb
shareholder shepherd state hate spite to serve
astonishment ubiquity
moreover offshore doll coagulate consent
white fur rage flurry arms amassing
false-tilted-sky-in-law by marriage twin [in-law]
sunken heaven cross-hair passage baby stranger buy-back ghetto
stag hag spit pit echo state hate briny
deep seep whiny
sunburnt thunder
blunt force blunder
wine dark rum red wine blue flotsam jetsam trash talk trash
wildfire smoky hazy flaming red hot yellow bruise
tittle tattle cockabully tycoon typhoon dead zone douchebag
plastic children
winning stench
toy-apple-blooded-baby
laughingstock
microplastic stupor deeper squirrel-bait creeper drastic peeper detonate
coagulate drone-boy trigger pink mist trembling
water children
winning stench
toy wreckage ruin bloody
laughingstock
daybreak
fell down
to children
of water
children
of the sky
Synthetic-sin-city- fake-iron-clad-pity clown-rocket-jerk-rubble
snake-oil-gold-trouble crass-ammo-pink-trigger doll-digger-troll-trumpet
sand and sludge debris
waste burrow want hollow trapping trappings
pull us lower under water under deeper
head or tail this coin medallion
ancient twilight
your face above
your face below
my face above
my face below
all the seven skies
seven skies seven seas seven skies
daybreak twilight dayspring
below
below
below
—————————————-
COMBING HER HAIR
(an ancient stone medallion of the Goddess gleams at the bottom of the Sea,
as the Shaman combs her hair)
SISTER
At the harvest, I summoned the spirit
of your family, singing, if you’re in this house, come here.
I cannot see you.
GODDESS
No spirit is here,
no family,
we will not come.
SISTER
I gave you a bird’s nest soup.
But where are your feet; where are your thighs;
where are your loins?
GODDESS
Here they are;
there they are.
SISTER
I gave you sea swallow caves and said
Where is your belly?
GODDESS
Here it is.
But where are your shoulders;
where is your throat?
WAYFARER/SHAMAN (combing the pollution from
her hair measures 37 to 44, 69 – 76)
shredded sun
in bruising brine
sunk to (the) rouge of ruin
riptide clown-coin-rubble
beaten golden cherubim
tangled up in mercy
spreading now
below the mercy
tilting to the mercy seat
returning inward to the mercy
SISTER
Here it is; there it is.
My bird’s nest gatherers
hung over your cliffs
swept into caves.
GODDESS
They groped in darkness to offer you rice and rouge
so you could be remembered for asking
Where is your mouth.
(harmony flourishes throughout the universe as birds give up their
nests from her hair)
SISTER
But in reaching your mouth
I know you have no bones,
no hair.
SISTER & GODDESS
At the harvest
I summoned the spirit of your family Singing
if you’re in this house come here
I cannot….reach you
SEA OF ANNIHILATION (Malkauns Sgmdn midnight raga)
ALL (GODDESS, SISTER, BIRD, WAYFARER)
at the arching axis, to the other
mirror shadow shadow mirror
there’s no telling north or south
true compassion and true emptiness taste the same
fruit of the real
There’s no record which was taken first
pure or true
emptiest compassion tastes the same
fruit of the pure ambrosia
sceptor-thought
thunderbolt
diamond salt ambrosia
tastes the same
and will be the same forever