Opera Piano, solo Voices
SKU: PR.411411630
Opera in Two Acts.
Composed by Ricky Ian
Gordon. Piano Reduction
Score. 438 pages.
Duration 2 minutes, 30
seconds. Theodore Presser
Company #411-41163.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.411411630).
ISBN
9781491137635. UPC:
680160691081. English.
Intimate Apparel by Lynn
Nottage.
Originally
an award-winning play,
Lynn Nottage’s INTIMATE
APPAREL was inspired by
her great-grandmother’s
life in New York in the
early 20th century. The
Pulitzer-laureate also
created the libretto for
Ricky Ian Gordon’s
grand-yet-intimate opera
whose complete
instrumentation is two
pianos. The story follows
the life of a young,
single seamstress who has
recently emigrated from
Barbados, the fascinating
cast of characters in her
life, and her
socially-unacceptable
feelings of affection for
a Jewish fabric salesman.
The premiere production
of this 2½-hour drama
was televised nationally
from Lincoln Center on
PBS’s “Great
Performances.”.
Inti
mate Apparel began with
an old photograph that I
found haphazardly wedged
between the pages of a
Family Circle magazine. I
was helping my
grandmother, who’d
developed debilitating
senile dementia, move
from her longtime home in
Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
In the midst of a pile of
weathered magazines I
discovered a black and
white passport photograph
of my grandmother Waple
and her younger sister
Eurita sitting on their
mother’s lap. It was
the first time I’d ever
seen an image of my
great-grandmother Ethel,
a striking woman with
high West African
cheekbones and a gentle
intensity. She had been a
seamstress from Barbados,
who at the age of 18
arrived alone in New York
City at the dawn of the
Twentieth Century. The
image invited a thousand
questions, none that
could be answered by the
living, and it led me on
a journey to piece
together the history of
my great-grandmother
Ethel, a woman who was
basically a stranger to
me. The only clue that I
had about Ethel, was a
story that my grandmother
had once told me about
her mother corresponding
with a man laboring on
the Panama Canal, who
would eventually become
her husband. I was
fascinated by this story,
which served as the
inspiration for INTIMATE
APPAREL.As I began my
research for INTIMATE
APPAREL at the New York
Public Library, I
discovered that lives of
Black working women in
the early 1900s were
woefully absent from the
archive. So, I found
myself perusing help
wanted listings, boarding
house and clothing
advertisements, looking
for any sign of women
like my great-grandmother
on the printed page. As I
was doing so, I began to
find the characters that
would populate the world
of INTIMATE APPAREL;
Esther the lonely
seamstress, Mrs. Dickson
the proprietress of the
boardinghouse for Black
women, Mr. Marks the
Jewish fabric salesman on
the Lower Eastside, Mrs.
Van Buren the wealthy
white socialite on the
Upper Eastside, Mayme the
sex worker in the
tenderloin, and George
the laborer toiling on
the Panama Canal. As I
was conjuring the
characters, I realized
that I was interested in
the unexpected
intersections between
class, race, and gender
at the turn of the
Twentieth Century, and
what happens when people
across cultural and
economic divides are
thrust into spaces of
intimacy.INTIMATE APPAREL
began its life as a
popular play, but it was
the brilliant composer
Ricky Ian Gordon who
invited me to consider
adapting it into an
opera. He saw something
epic and expansive in the
life of Esther that he
felt demanded to be sung,
and with his loving
guidance I was able to
write my first libretto.
It took me several tries
to figure out how to
wrestle my play into a
form that was new to me.
As a playwright, I kept
wanting to maintain
absolute control of the
narrative. But, it was
Ricky’s words that
freed me creatively to
find my way into the
libretto. He said,
“You’re not trusting
my music as a narrative
tool; I can say “I love
you” without any words,
with just music. So,
allow me to be your
collaborator on the
storytelling.” And once
he said that, we found
INTIMATE APPAREL the
opera together.
Tim Labor
