INVISIBLE CHILD
Opera in Two Acts
Music by Robert Paterson | Libretto by David Cote
Projected Duration: ca. 120'
Libretto: David Cote
Instrumentation: 12-15 singer cast and orchestra: picc. (doubling fl. 3), 2 fl, 2 ob, English horn, 2 cl, bass cl, 2 bsn, C bsn, 4 hns, 3 tpts, 2 tbns, bass tbn, tba, timp, 2 perc, keyboard (currently piano, celesta and harpsichord which may be played on synthesizer), full strings.
World Premiere: TBD
Publisher: Bill Holab Music
BRIEF SYNOPSIS
This is the tale of Jason and Ana, "the cowboy and the gypsy." Jason is the son of a Texas oil tycoon who fell from grace and now drives 18-wheelers West all the way to the deadly ice roads of Alaska. Ana is a self-proclaimed gypsy, a poor immigrant with a million-dollar voice. She has become an opera star with engagements across the globe. Their affair was short, intense and explosive, and resulted in an unplanned child.
Jason believed the child died, but she lived, placed in a mental institution by Ana, after the child was diagnosed with severe autism. Twelve years later, doctors at the institution contact Ana with news of a procedure that might help the girl. Ana tells Jason the truth. He is enraged but also overjoyed. They visit the clinic. Jason won’t approve the operation and takes Jenny out.
He brings his daughter on the road, and the action shifts between Jason’s blue-collar life and Ana’s glittering lifestyle. Their lives intersect at one point, and the family comes together. Ana sees that Jenny responds more and more to the world. The father communicates to the child with a simple song that she can sing back to him. Ana takes this in, and there is a slow shift in her outlook.
Invisible Child is the story of a family that spans continents and cultures, bridging miles of frozen wasteland even as it maps the territory of an autistic child’s mind. Set against two backdrops, the bustle of Texas society, and the starkness of distant Alaska, the contrast emphasizes the humor and sadness, the light and the dark, and moves us toward a dramatic outcome about the nature of loss, and its inevitable finality.
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ARIOSO: LISTEN TO ME
Jason and Ana visit New Horizons, a treatment facility for children and young adults with developmental disabilities, in Houston, Texas. An eminent doctor and a nurse meet with the parents to explain a risky but possibly life-changing procedure that could help Jenny. Jason is impatient and mistrustful; he wants to see his daughter. The doctor makes his case to the parents.
DOCTOR
Listen to me:
Your daughter is damaged beyond repair.
I cannot fix her, I am not God.
And yet, and yet...
I believe she can change.
Listen to me:
There are hundreds of possible causes for her affliction.
NURSE
Chromosomal abnormality.
DOCTOR
Complications during pregnancy.
NURSE
Severe nutritional deficiency.
DOCTOR
Leading to the state we once called idiocy.
Listen to me:
There is an operation we can do.
Jennifer’s left and frontal lobes are fused.
With a careful operation, we can enter the skull,
Make five small incisions, remove lesions,
And leave the girl transformed.
Right now she is a creature roaming in the dark,
This operation could light a candle in her mind.
DOCTOR & NURSE
Open her eyes to the world.
ARIA: ONLY ME
Ana gets a surprise visit from Jason and Jenny. The girl is showing some improvement, responding more to word and touch. Ana has a major engagement in Los Angeles but she agrees to visit the beach with Jason and Jenny. As father and daughter wander down the beach, Ana watches them and reflects on her family and her past.
ANA
How natural they seem.
From here, normal.
From this distance, a happy father and his daughter. Normal.
Once I had a family.
Myself, Jason and Jenny
Now me, simply me.
What’s a family?
I have forgotten.
Or I never knew.
I was an orphan raised by strangers,
Now three strangers come together,
And pretend it’s natural.
Natural, this arrangement.
Natural.
A family.
We learn to forget,
Forget we forgot,
We banish the thought
That we had to forget
To forge a family.
A happy forgery.
One thing made of three:
My daughter, my husband, and me.
A broken branch on a forgotten tree.
Now me, only me,
Sitting by the sea.
ARIA: FATHER LOST
Atigun Pass, Alaska in the dead of night. Jason is in the cab of his 16-wheeler. His truck has rolled halfway down a cliff. Two back tires blown and axel bent. Blizzard outside. It’s seven hours to Coldfoot and he’s got nothing but fuzz from Yukon Dispatch. As he tries to keep his spirits up in the truck and wire for help, his thoughts drift to Jenny, who was sickly when he left her in Ana’s care.
JASON
Five thousand feet above the frozen sea and my tire blows.
Could be worse. Could be under fifteen tons of avalanche snow.
(Unscrews a hip flask)
Could be worse. Could be out of Jack in my plastic flask.
(Takes a swig.)
But since my girl isn’t here,
She’s miles away with a fever,
Nothing but snow on the receiver,
And between me and the ice there’s just glass,
And since you ask: It is worse.
(He grabs the CB radio and barks into it)
Dispatch! Dispatch!
Busted rig on Atigun Pass!
Where is my baby?
Playing? Sleeping?
Being sweet or raising hell?
Daddy’s coming; he’ll be home soon.
Not a hundred mountains or ten million miles of ice can keep me away!
Jenny, I’m coming; I’ll be home soon!
(Again to the CB, with increasing urgency:)
Dispatch! Dispatch!
Trucker down on Atigun Pass!
(No answer. From behind the sun visor, he pulls out photographs.)
Just wait. They’ll come. Be patient, Jenny.
Where is that picture of you I love?
I remember that day. The beach.
You and your mother. Are you smiling?
Or is it the sun in your eyes?
Oh, Jenny.
Forgive me.
(Again to the CB, desperate and angry:)
Dispatch! Dispatch!
Father lost on Atigun Pass!
Dispatch! Dispatch!
Libretto by David Cote. Copyright © 2013. Used with permission.
Synopsis and Libretto © Copyright 2013 David Cote.