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Dominick DiOrio
Dominick DiOrio (DD3 Publications)
The Captured Goddess
A bleak setting portraying the sad and awful realization of lost innocence.
Soprano, viola, and piano
Composer’s Notes
The Captured Goddess is a bleak setting of Amy Lowell’s poem of the same name. Written for soprano Misha Penton, the work grew out of our collaboration on Klytemnestra. It was designed as a “couture song” to fit Misha’s voice, while at the same time portraying the sad and awful realization of lost innocence inherent in Lowell’s words. It was originally premiered in June 2011 at the Rothko Chapel by Misha Penton and Kyle Evans.
At Misha’s request, I created a revised version with viola in winter 2013. The viola writing is at times very vocal, drawing the maximum amount of emotional energy out of the contact of string and the reverberation of wood.
– Dominick DiOrio
Text
Over the housetops,
Above the rotating chimney-pots,
I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
And blue and cinnamon have flickered
A moment,
at the far end of a dusty street.
Through sheeted rain
Has come a lustre of crimson,
And I have watched moonbeams
Hushed by a film of palest green.
It was her wings,
Goddess!
Who stepped over the clouds,
And laid her rainbow feathers
Aslant on the currents of the air.
I followed her for long,
With gazing eyes and stumbling feet.
I cared not where she led me,
My eyes were full of colours:
Saffrons, rubies, the yellows of beryls,
And the indigo-blue of quartz;
Flights of rose, layers of chrysoprase,
Points of orange, spirals of vermilion,
The spotted gold of tiger-lily petals,
The loud pink of bursting hydrangeas.
I followed,
And watched for the flashing of her wings.
In the city I found her,
The narrow-streeted city.
In the market-place I came upon her,
Bound and trembling.
Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords,
She was naked and cold,
For that day the wind blew
Without sunshine.
Men chaffered for her,
They bargained in silver and gold,
In copper, in wheat,
And called their bids across the market-place.
The Goddess wept.
Hiding my face I fled,
And the grey wind hissed behind me,
Along the narrow streets.
– Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
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