opium songs

Countertenor and Piano

2021—23 | 12’

• Commissioned by the St. Marylebone Festival (1) and MAX Musicians (2)

• Premiered by Andrew Watts and Gavin Roberts at the St. Marylebone Festival (1) and Wigmore Hall (2)

1. So They Gave Me Opium

2. Wax and Wail

opium songs sets two texts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a private letter to Robert Browning describing her reliance on laudanum, and the hallucinatory poem A True Dream. The first song unfolds like a recitative, following the restlessness, bodily confinement, and relief described in the letter. The second song takes the form of an aria, suspending the distorted, dreamlike imagery of the poem into an uneasy stillness.