DU YUN
ZOLLE (2003-2005)
A Chamber Opera Full Score
CONTENTS Synopsis
i
Cast & Instrumentation
ii
Text
iii -vii
Score
viii Chapter I.
Beginning……. ..........................…………….. 1
Chapter II. Rumble ..................................................... 20 Chapter III. Backdrop................................................... 26 Chapter IV. e il vento .................................................... 38 Chapter V. Senza Cappotto ........................................ 54 Chapter VI. No-Ah ....................................................... 59 Chapter VII. Climax ....................................................... 63 Chapter VIII. Resign ....................................................... 82 Chapter IX. Felice te .................................................... 87 Chapter X.
Finale ........................................................ 96
i Underwritten by the generous support from Jerome Foundation
DURATION ca. 55’ Story by Du Yun (2003)
Synopsis
Zolle, a music narrative of a dead woman, wanders through the shadowy space between memory and reality, tracing the lines of her identity through the land she once walked: an immigrant in death as in life. Story by the composer First Performance Oct 27, 2005 Performance Space 122, New York City International Contemporary Ensemble, Du Yun, Katey Paker, Darren Chase Direction by Lydia Steier Dramaturgy: T. Nikki Cesare
ii
CAST Narrator*……………………………………. The Wander Woman Ghost Female Voice*……………………………… The Same Wander Woman Ghost Tenor**………………………………………...The Land-Watcher Man
*The Narrator and the Female Voice are of the same character **Depending on the staging, the Tenor could either be live or played on a recording INSTRUMENTATION Fl. (db Al.Fl) / A. Sax (db T.Sax) / Perc / Vln / Vla / Vc Percussion List: Vibraphone, Low Drums, Floor Tom, Snare Drum, Bass Drum, Brake Drums, Tam Tam, Metal Plates, Low, Medium, & Hi Suspended Cymbals Crotales, Toy Melodica, Toy Zither, Coil Spring/Metal, Temple Blocks (4), Toms, Ratchet, Hi Woodblock, Toy Thunder Rolls (2) (* metal beeds to be a set of non-pitched noisy pots & pans metals)
Prepare * A set of walkie-talkie * 3 toy melodicas * bull-horn, optional, could be paper-made
iii
Text for the narrator
ZOLLE
<Italian: A chunk of (Earth)>
Story: DU YUN
(Rumble , song 1 with walkie-talkie) (p.20-25)
(Beginning)(p.1-19) (Narrator enters on p.13)
The train stopped at a remote station. I saw them walking down from the train. Two men; an older and a younger. One of them is my father, the other my son. They stood on the platform of the train station, overlooking the crop-fields facing the northwest. I knew they were looking at the village, I knew my father was telling my son that at the end of the crop-field is our home-village. I saw my father and my son stand on our home-earth, one full of gusto, one nonchalant. I heard the home-earth of our village then spill a sigh … my tears fell down.
For many years I have imagined my returning day of coming home. I imagined the day of the glory. I could imagine I was leading my entire family –––– my parents, my husband and all of my children, bringing eighteen pieces of luggage, eighteen pieces of luggage full of crackers cloths soaps pens food and liquor, full of gifts for my village-relatives. I could imagine bringing my children to our ancestors’ tombs, the ancestors under the tomb would run to each other hysterically, exhilaratingly inform each other of the good news of my home-coming. But it’s all a dream. I never assumed our first returning home would be this lonely. My father and my son had no more than a little urn with them and I, could no longer bring anything back to my home-village, for I am already, a wandering ghost. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I remember from my previous life of my first time visiting my home-village. That summer, I turned eight years old. After trains, buses, rick-shaws and walkings, my father led me to a field of crops and mule dumps. the smell of mule dumps, pungent, sweet, filled of fresh grasses that nearly jumped out –– the cleanest smell seeped into my memory of an eight-year-old; the sights of the land, the curve of the stones at the edge of the field; the nights I fell sound asleep, sinking into the smell of the mule dumps; the bed was huge, made of bricks and beneath it, was the cooking fire coming from the kitchen next door.
In the bed, I fell sound asleep, dreamt of nothing. My eight-year-old-body was a welcoming home for the returning spirits. My eight-year-old-body beckoned the spirits back into me, for the first time in my living life. I remember the sound of their returning, the presence of them on those nights still vividly alive in my memory as a ghost. The next day my father and I paid a visit to my grandparents’ tombs that sat just behind the house. I saw two yellow mounds sticking out from the earth. I kneeled down. I heard my grandma sigh. Later, my grandpa murmured back to me. Tears poured out. Tears that didn’t belong to my eight-year-old body. They were cultivated from many life-long cycles. Some Ancient and Ageing tears. They came out so strongly that my eight-year-old-body could hardly contain them; nor could it stop the wailing. Then my eyes wandered to elsewhere; they saw my
iv
shoulders trembling and yet didn’t understand why. My eyes felt dry. Then my knees
(e il vento, song 3)
failed me; my eight-year-old-body collapsed.
(p.38-53)
...
Emphatically, I’m trying to renew my lease on life, as a ghost. Looking down, I’m seeing full of zombies crawling on the ever-changing fast pace
(Backdrop, song 2) (p.26-37)
of living things. I’m seeing what has been destroyed more quickly than the ozone layer is the layers of irony that categorize us from being generalized. Our radiation of the
Our entire village bears the same surname as I.
remembrance has been disappearing. No one cares. Nothing is worth mentioning.
My family name has its own temple. Because girls are not allowed there, my father and I
I roamed along, wandered about; nowhere accepted me. The ghosts have their
had to sneak into there. My father unfolded a painting in front of me telling me that it is
own communities to which I don’t belong. I forgot to bring a registration number
the painting of our family tree. A very old man on the painting looked at me. Under his
into this world. The tragic irony is, I still remember my life on the earth. I still
seated feet, are the names of his sons’ grandsons and great grandsons and their sons’
remember the smell of my land. The pulse of my land yet vibrates; the blood of
grandsons and great-grandsons. Their wives’ names are put into the left column.
which yet circulates; the breath of which, intoxicated.
Throughout the years their names looked over their husbands’ names, as though the last attempt to re-secure their marriages. I saw the name of my grandpa on the right and
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
my grandma on the left. They sat at the fourth column to the last one. There are only
(p.54-53)
three more spaces on the family tree. After they are filled, there is no space on that
I stepped into someone, a man. He sang in his own dialect; which I would not
crumpled painting for newcomers anymore.
understand had I not been a ghost. Another land-watcher. He showed me his
The blank spaces were dancing, frantically, in front of my eyes, hurting me.
land… beautiful … … (to Aria I, Senza Cappotto)
It was the fourth to the last column. I counted to make room for my uncle and my father. And there was only one left. I was in a panic. I have to die before my cousins. I have to die before them. The last one space on the column. I have to make it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=(No-Ah) (p.59-62)
From that day on, my eight-year-old-body aged quickly. It could not await the day for
Then I saw my father stride towards me. Then came my son. I waved to them. I
its name to appear on the last column of that crumpled painting that was hung in a dark
ran after them. And yet, neither of them recognized me. They were so happy.
temple in a remote village, a distant land somewhere there.
They ran to the paradise. In the space above the living world, once again, I was
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
left behind.
v
I don’t belong to anywhere, not even in this ghost world.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I couldn’t make myself disappear. My land is calling me; I can still hear it. Faintly, I
(Resign)
could feel the outline of the land, but I couldn’t tell the exact shape --- Which one is it.
(p.82-86)
Which one. I’m studying my shadow projected onto the lamp post in the city. I realize the colour of my shadow has fainted, a threadbare shade. Time elapses, years have I floated to the eastside of the town where I spent the last couple of decades of my living life; the skyscape has been changed; it then took me three years to sail to where I was
evaporated. I’m hearing the sound of passing time, the passing wind. Those gray clouds, my teardrops mist.
born; and yet I couldn’t remember any of the faces that are on the land. The water spins in opposite directions, a different hemisphere after all. The smell of the land from my memory bothered me; it has been too long.
All of a sudden, I feel the urge to resign. And yet nowhere can accept my resignation. I have never imagined myself as an immigrant, even in this ghost world.
what is it; which one; where is it; What Is It.
A sudden failure, a sudden lapse of my will. Cracks emerged, by
completion of a smallest nuance. … (to Aria II, Felice te)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(Climax) (Instrumental, no voice) (p.63-81)
The wind crashes me apart; the wind wails fanatically. It breaks up the sunbeams, thinning and crispening the air; the broken rays frail upon the touch. My cloth has been worn out throughout my years of wandering --- I don’t have a decent outfit to go back to my land. And then I hear my buttons are wailing; and then my collar cried in echo; in a second, I’m soaked into my own tears; they fell into the clouds. The wailing wind sighs.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
7
(Finale) (p.96-98)
Then I witnessed myself melting away rotten
My legs turning into the soil then my shoulders then my memories … … from afar, my eyes saw them slipping, slipping… … my heart … has gradually
frozen into
a fossil of traces of my memory
The fossil glows itself,
a big chunk of earth <THE END>