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david del tredici: dracula (1996-98)
Dracula, a commission by the EOS Orchestra, is a setting of Alfred Corn's
poem My Neighbor, the Distinguished Count. It is written for soprano
and thirteen instruments, one of which is the theremin - that exotic,
otherworldly-sounding electronic instrument featured in many early Hollywood
mystery films, most notably Laura.
The text is based, of course, upon the gothic tale, but retold here from the point of view of a woman living next-door to "the distinguished count." The poem chronicles her gradual seduction, degradation, rejection and, finally, "vampiristic" transformation.
Actually, more is spoken than sung. In this piece, singing signifies a heightened state; whenever the Count speaks, when the woman is emotionally overcome and, in the final scene, when her ecstatic transformation is complete.
The tone of the piece is both funny and scary, evoking (hopefully) both nervous giggles and unexpected gasps.
David Del Tredici
Dracula Text:
My Neighbor, The Distinguished Count by Alfred Corn
At first thinking it was harmless
Enough, I told myself I had pints
To spare, so why refuse a simple favor?
Hannah could have turned him away at the door,
But I didn't think that was necessary.
I'd always liked his mother and father
(Whom he grew sadly to resemble less
As months passed, his condition progressing).
The visits came bearably seldom,
And no one could have brought everything
Off more smoothly. Afterwards I'd feel calmer,
Drowsy, reconciled. Easy to see why
People once regularly bled themselves
For medical reasons, though of course
That was a cure normally reserved for men,
Who labor under greater pressures than we.
Easy, too, for one to think of donor service
As the good deed for the day - thy neighbor
As thyself, no? - a neighbor so visibly
In need, his pale brow furrowed, an electric
Tic active at the corner of the mouth.
Thoughts less reassuring surfaced later
When what he meant as compensation arrived,
The flowers, touring car idling outside,
Heart-shaped boxes of intricate chocolates,
Young Burgundies, spring lamb nicely done up.
Why did the visits multiply? No doubt
There had been other clients beforehand,
But perhaps they moved or died, who can say?
Or else he'd concluded I was, for the moment,
A likely vintage and a pleasant temperature.
One afternoon I brought myself to ask.
"I come to you, dearest, because you think
Of me. An irresistible summons."
Manners: how tell an acquaintance serene
In the conviction of having been your constant
Preoccupation for how long now that,
In fact, you hardly ever thought of him?
Chided jokingly, could he read minds?
He answered, even better than that, he could read
Signs. It seemed I'd left them everywhere.
And true messages always reached their addressee,
Wasn't it so? From this I knew the mere facts
Of our erratic situation counted for nothing
When placed beside his own inner persuasions.
He told me he'd been seeing more "signs" than ever,
And certainly he came to me more and more often,
Insisting I call him Tony, as his friends did.
I tactfully refused. When dealing with
Obsession, as a rule the safest plan
Is to maintain a strict formality.
Yet it occurred to me at some point symptoms
Might creep up with no warning. You would be
Quite unaware of new expressive habits
Connected, he said, to your daydreams - which,
In this case, were also traps. I must outwit them.
Have you ever tried not to think of a face
Or a voice, going over each confused tangle
On the mental loom to make sure the banned
Thread of reference doesn't appear in it?
How often I longed to stay profoundly asleep
And never be conscious againÖ.Waking,
I brooded on little but how to stop our meetings,
A rebellion no doubt proving just how much his
I was. For what demonstrates more clearly
The power of a creator than fierce resistance
From his creature? If alive, it will be free.
Free, it will insist on its own ideas -
And so, at last, have to be disciplined.
Lately, there's been another turn of the screw.
His chauffeur arrives with a silver cover
Under which lies a rat, spitted and roasted.
Or his gardener will leave a fistful of poison ivy
Tied with catgut in the mailbox. And then, the dresses,
Too small, too large, jaundice yellow, black violet.
Now it's hopeless, no hour passes without thoughts
I've given up trying to sidestep or quench -
Which he has taken as license to appear
At all hours, day or night, and send, with thanks,
More frequent tokens of declining esteem.
I gather from what he says (we sit, we chat)
I'm not what I used to be, his visits, indeed,
A gesture of sentimental gallantry.
Apparently there's someone else lessÖshopworn.
Yesterday I asked, in a voice admittedly weak
(The constant drain), why he still bothered to call.
"Because, my dear, you haven't stopped thinking of me."
I blushed (faintly), he smiled, and when he left there was -
Where? Oh yes, the kitchen - a coiled blood sausage,
Old, wizened, utterly dried out, resting
On a small hand mirror. I remember this now
Only because I can't help doing so, aware
Of the acrid little joke: that, according
To his iron code of gamesmanship, I have
Just authorized another courtesy call.
In full knowledge also (hideous necklaces of sores
That no longer heal, veins like blackened vines!)
That today he will come for the last time.
My quaint request is that the coup de grace
Be administered by himself alone and not
By any of his troop of haggard followers
Who have begun to congregate outside.
Thick as autumn leaves ready for the bonfire,
They throng my doorstep, basser eyes pleading;
And without giving their names, pronounce my own,
A silken cajolery drolly intoned, as if -
As if they were old friends I'm about to rejoin.
And then, this driving pain in my eyeteeth,
This thirstÖ.Well, you see, I want my turn, too.
A country mile off, I saw and felt the change.
It has the magnetism of all dimly grasped ideals.
Surely by now no one can say I am not deserving?
I understand the problems and am willing to work.
Look, he has arrived. Hannah's white cap vanishes
Down the dark passage and is replaced by his face
Floating in the gloom like a full moon, eyes lowered,
His left hand dangling a gold watch on its long chain.
Never have I seen so much, nor ever felt so deeply-
Hence the sudden piercing intimation of what I am
One day to be, this twilit picture of discretion, the set
Of his features calm as an engraving of one who lets words
Of gratitude pass in silence as he settles to the task.
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