(In-Progress)
Synopsis and Libretto: David Cote.
Based on the award-winning novel by R.C. Hutchinson.
Projected Duration: ca. 120'00"
Instrumentation: full cast, male chorus and orchestra
World Premiere: TBD
Official Website: A Child Possessed (includes detailed synopsis, list of characters, libretto and full audio mp3 files for two demo scenes)
DEMO SCENES
Act I, Scene 5 (Piano Reduction) [PDF]
Act II, Scene 1 (Piano Reduction) [PDF]
Photo © Jesse Moscoe. Used with permission.
Act I
French-Romanian soprano Hélène Milescu is a world-renowned opera star with a secret: Years ago she married Russian expatriate Stepan Lopuchine. Stepan, born into aristocracy, was exiled from his native country and now makes his living as a truck driver in Marseilles. Stepan and Hélène had a child, Eugénie, who was born with severe mental disabilities. When the child was three, Helen placed Génie in a Swiss hospital and told Stepan she had died. The couple has been estranged for five years. Now, neurologists at the Swiss hospital contact Hélène during a tour and inform her that there’s an operation that could improve Génie dramatically. However, they need permission from both parents. Hélène reluctantly reunites with Stepan and tells him the truth: Génie is alive. He is shocked, but agrees to accompany Hélène to the hospital. Once there, Stepan is disgusted with the antiseptic and freakish aspect of the place, with lobotomized patients and detached professionals. Hélène reminds him that this is Génie’s only chance. The girl herself finally enters, looking utterly withdrawn, uncommunicative, disheveled. Stepan goes down on one knee and opens his arms to embrace her. She approaches him and then suddenly, inexplicably, sinks her teeth into his hand. As Stepan’s blood trickles to the white hospital floor, he sings tenderly to his eight-year-old daughter, asking her forgiveness. Then he announces that they’re leaving immediately. Hélène objects, but Stepan says it’s his chance to raise the child.
Act II
Two weeks later, Stepan is raising Génie in Marseilles. The girl looks better: She’s groomed and nicely dressed but still distant. At the seedy boarding house where Stepan lives, drunks and sailors have gathered in the first-floor bar to mock the mad Russian and his bizarre girl. Later, he takes Génie on one of his truck routes through the countryside. He sings a lullaby to her and she seems to respond. Sometime later, Hélène is preparing for an engagement at a glamorous hotel in Cannes. Stepan and Génie unexpectedly show up and whisk her away for a day at the beach. Hélène sees how the child is improving, when, again, it responds to Stepan’s lullaby. The father and daughter attend Hélène’s concert that evening. Afterwards, Stepan surprises Hélène by revealing that he has to go on an extended delivery job and Génie can’t come along. He begs Hélène to take care of her and meet him back in Marseilles. To her great annoyance, Hélène can’t say no. Stepan goes on his delivery job but finds himself stuck in a blizzard in the mountains. He struggles to stay alive in his truck as he freezes, singing to Génie. Meanwhile, Génie has gotten dangerously sick and Hélène desperately tries to nurse her back to health. Separated but simultaneously, Hélène and Stepan sing the lullaby to the dying Génie. The girl, in a raging fever, sings a few lines herself, before collapsing. The next day, Stepan limps into Madame Pascoli’s. Hélène, in his room with Génie in her arms, reports that the girl died two hours ago. Stepan cries out in grief, as does Hélène, and they fall into each others’ arms. The final scene is two months later. Stepan greets Hélène at the stage door of an opera house. We don’t know if they have reconnected as husband and wife or as friends. But there is a sense of renewal and hope.
