FULL SHE LOVES YOU BACK Portland 2023 Renegade Opera, Claire Robertson-Preis, Emily Way

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: SHE LOVES YOU BACK  
• Composer: Ashi Day, Shruthi Rajasekar, Lisa Neher, Robert Schumann  
• Libretto: various    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Historic Alberta House, Portland, Oregon, Renegade Opera  
• Recorded: 2023
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Claire Robertson-Preis, Emily Way
• Conductor: Jesse Preis  
• Orchestra: Jesse Preis, PIANO  
• Stage Director: Joellen Sweeney  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Format: DVD
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

PROGRAMME:
For Whom the Dog Tolls
Ashi Day

The Letter
Music by Shruthi Rajasekar
Texts by Lord George Gordon Byron, George Etherege and Carl Sandburg

Frauenliebe und -leben
Music by Robert Schumann
Text by Adelbert von Chamisso

No One Saves the Earth From Us But Us
Music by Lisa Neher
Texts by Craig Santos Perez and Felicia Zamora
1. It Was Summer All Winter
3. Among Starving Polar Bears
7. O, Vulnerable Humans
10. The Taut Logic of Crisis

Sonnet at the Edge of the Reef
Music by Lisa Neher
Text by Craig Santos Perez

A Note from the Director
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.” —Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

“I was raised with the idea that the Earth is a living being. She gives life to you in and return you have a responsibility. We, collectively, have come to a point where we are ignoring the cries of Earth Morther. That is how the Climate Crisis is linked to women and girls, because the same structures that are uprooting, abusing, hurting, taking without consent [are] how we treat Planet Earth.” – Ayisha Siddqa, Climate Activist

It’s natural to feel helpless in the face of the Climate Crisis. When I let the magnitude of it in, I almost always do. Our planet is vast and complex, and the forces that continually harm it are powerful, fast moving and financially resourced. And who am I? No one. A leaf. A bean. A coral polyp. A poppy seed. A droplet. A shadow. One human woman.

And yet: reading the words of artist-activists like Ayisha Siddiqa, or artist-activist-scientists like Robin Wall Kimmerer, I am invited to examine the thinking that situates me as a powerless parasite, anonymously consuming from the planetary host. Instead, I am asked to reflect on my personal relationship with the planet that nourishes me daily. How are we doing, she and I? How is the quality of my listening? What sort of reciprocity do I offer for the daily gifts of air, water, sustenance? Where am I taking her for granted?

She Loves You Back is a gathering of reflections on relationships, particularly relationships involving and affecting women. In For Whom the Dog Tolls, we meet a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever who delights in being of service to the Hunter (her owner) and his whims—she revels in all that she can offer him. Next, we hear lines from real letters sent by men throughout history to women in The Letter, Rajesekar’s new work, and examine the human desire to possess and own what we love. A reimagined staging of the song cycle Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben connects the self-effacing love of the Woman/Earth to the rapid exploitation of nature begun in the Industrial Revolution. Finally, we arrive at Neher’s works which ask – who saves the earth from humanity but humanity itself? How do we accept the planet’s love without possession, exploitation, and extraction? How can we move from a place of rupture to a place of repair?

So thank YOU–fellow droplet, fellow bean–for joining us tonight in listening for the voice of a planet that loves you back.

–Joellen Sweeney, Stage Director

 

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