103-year old Nicanor Parra—poet, mathematician, and lifelong atheist—arrives in the afterlife, to his great bewilderment. He finds himself in a large space, criss-crossed with strands of thick, wool yarn, like the material his sister Violeta used to use to create large embroidered tapestries. Hanging on to a single thread, he walks slowly, calling for her in sorrow, asking all the questions that have haunted him since her tragic death fifty years before his.

Condensed Score

After Nicanor calls for his lost sister to appear, several figures emerge from giant tapestries that depict musicians and dancers. They are friends and relatives of the Parra family (perhaps memories, perhaps spirits), and join with Nicanor to entice Violeta to reunite with her older brother, and begin a journey back to their childhood years in rural, southern Chile.

Score

This song, from the last part of the play, takes us to the final years of Violeta’s life—the height of her compositional creativity and a period of professional and personal disappointment. Her long relationship with Swiss musician Gilbert Favre begins to unravel, as he travels to Bolivia in search of new artistic frontiers. Violeta’s words show her effort to harness inner strength, but they are tinged with irony. Gilbert’s sung responses reflect the deep, but conflicted, affection he holds for her.

Score