Jefferson & Poe: A Lyric Opera in Two Acts, Music by Damon Ferrante and Libretto by Daniel Mark Epstein
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A video slideshow of scenes from "Jefferson & Poe"
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Brief Synopsis: On a March evening, through a light snowfall, Jefferson returns from Williamsburg to Monticello. He has spent the day petitioning the burgesses to permit him to sell his lands by public lottery. He is in great debt. Sarah, Jefferson’s companion and a slave, greets him, along with Catherine, a young woman and house guest from Richmond, who has just come from a visit with girlfriends nearby. Poe, a dashing, young, and impulsive student, rides up the hill to Monticello from the university hoping—with a collection of half-developed schemes—to borrow money from Jefferson to pay a gambling debt. The burgesses, figments of Jefferson’s imagination, enter and spread the rumor that Jefferson and Sarah are Catherine’s parents. Sarah confirms the rumor in conversation with Jefferson, and threatens to tell her the truth if Jefferson does not keep his promise: to free the girl on her eighteenth birthday, fast approaching. She wants him to draw up his will and the papers to free Catherine; Jefferson feels that such a public action at this time, and a scandal, would ruin his plan to sell the land. Poe, eavesdropping, overhears all this.
Through raucous argumentation, feints at blackmail, hypnotic prophecy, and reflections on love and liberty, Poe, Sarah, and Catherine convince Jefferson to do what in his heart he wishes to do—free his wife and daughter. |
