FRANKENSTEIN
An opera in three acts
music by Greg Sandow
libretto by Thomas M. Disch
CAST
Victor Frankenstein, a rash young Swiss scientist Baritone Elizabeth Lavenza, his fiancée Soprano Henry Clerval, Victor's friend, also in love with Elizabeth Tenor The Creature, created and then abandoned by Victor Frankenstein Bass-baritone Victor’s Father Bass Charlotte, Elizabeth’s friend and confidante Mezzo Philip, a mad friar Bass Lars, a sea-captain Tenor Villagers; Elizabeth’s friends; Victor’s friends; Lars’s crew.
The roles of Philip and Victor’s Father may be sung by the same singer.
Act 2, scene 1 was performed at the Lake George Opera Festival in 1979. That scene, and Act 1 up to the end of Elizabeth’s aria was performed at the opera workshop at C. W. Post College in 1980; the entire opera was premiered there in 1981.
Scene 1
(A room in an inn. Papers scattered everywhere; books on a shelf. Victor Frankenstein lies in bed, unconscious. Henry sits near him.)HENRY
You are the cause, Elizabeth:
For you I have put by
My study of the law.
For you I've journeyed
To this mountain waste
To find your false betrothed,
Your Frankenstein!
For you, through months
Of snowbound silence
I have nursed him --
Frankenstein,
Friend of my childhood,
Rival of my youth,
The man you love, Elizabeth,
As faithfully as I've loved you.See where he lies, inert,
Unconscious, infantine;
Only alive at all
Because I spoon
Into his drooling mouth
The slops
He cannot feed himself.
Look at the limbs I daily bathe,
How like the rotted flesh
His learned knives
Would once dissect.See how his breath barely stirs
The bedclothes
His incontinence defiles.
And what is most obscene --
When he awakes
I must listen to
Ravings inconceivably vile…(Victor stirs, then speaks.)
I will not look at it.
I will not touch…And yet, see there,
The muscles
Contract,
Relax, contract…No more!…
In daylight,
With you, Elizabeth,
In Italy, as I have vowed --But stop, regard:
To these sorry scraps of death
I shall impart
A rhythmical…dilation.
Observe it well.
See how the plasma's sucked
Into the artery and then expelled.
Quite dead, you see, but then
Infused with air, it's red, alive.HENRY (approaching the bed)
He seems half-rational today.
Some stench yet of the charnel house
In all this speech, but his manner
Has become so much more calm.VICTOR (recoiling when Henry tries to touch him)
Away from me!
There is no pact,
No bond between us. None!
You have no right to look at me
Nor yet to live.(A distant horn call is heard offstage)
HENRY
The coachman's horn!
At last…the pass is clear.
There will be letters from Elizabeth.(joyfully)
Elizabeth!
See what a treasure I bring.
I've kept my pledge to you;
Now take my wounded heart.(Henry leaves. Villagers pass by outside singing a Lenten hymn. While they sing, Victor slowly and painfully gets up from bed and dresses.)
VILLAGERS (offstage)
There was an apple on a tree
That grew in God's eternity.
That apple eaten, we must die.
Our sins are written in the sky.No innocence on earth is found.
Closer, closer comes the sound
Of Death within his crimson coach.
Our hearts invite. Approach! Approach!He makes the bridal gown a shroud.
He smites the wise, the brave, the proud.
Into his cup our blood is poured;
Our flesh is bread upon his board.O Lord of Heaven, hear our cry!
Lead us to life, and let death die.
Crush his bones, his name, his face,
And ever shall we praise thy grace.(The Villagers' hymn fades away in the distance. Henry returns, a letter in his hand.)
HENRY (surprised)
You are awake!VICTOR (grimly)
I am alive.
How long have I lain here,
How many days?HENRY
It was November when I came.
Today Lent begins.
Have you not heard the penitents?
Four months you lay
In thrall to your delirium.
Now you arise again -- and look,
A letter from Elizabeth.VICTOR (taking the letter)
There is no need to open it.
Return to me, she writes.
Fulfill your vow.
Make me your bride.(with determination)
Henry, I must again
Command your strength.
Collect these papers from my desk,
And from the shelf above,
Those books.
See they are packed.(with great feeling)
Elizabeth!
(Curtain)
Destroy my memories,
And fill my emptiness with light.
Scene 2
(An unhallowed graveyard at the top of a rugged hill. A few crude graves shadowed by cypresses, and one open grave. Elizabeth, Charlotte, and a chorus of Elizabeth's friends stand near it.)FRIENDS
Just as, my dear, each day at dawn
The bright stars disappear,
So must at last we die, my love,
Into the brightness of the sky above.ELIZABETH
So must we die, so must we die.
FRIENDS
How swift the rose
Doth wilt and decompose.
How harsh the terms of death…ELIZABETH
How harsh the terms of death.
FRIENDS
As living bodies yield
Their flesh…ELIZABETH
…to worms!
FRIENDS
How harsh of death,
How harsh the terms.ELIZABETH, FRIENDS
How deep the grave,
How dark the earth…FRIENDS
Wherein we crave
Our second birth.ELIZABETH
How deep, how dark,
How dark the earth.
FRIENDSO Lord of light,
Instruct our sight.
Reveal the stars
That blossom always
In the meadows of the night.ELIZABETH
That blossom
In the meadows of the night.FRIENDS
Reveal, O Lord, the night.
(A brief silence.)
Dear friends, I thank you
That you share my grief.
Left to myself I would grieve
Wordlessly, and tears unshed
Would turn my heart to stone.FRIENDS
Elizabeth,
Poor lamb,
Sweet child.CHARLOTTE
To be alone,
And to have felt such woe!ELIZABETH
William is dead!
A child not ten years old,
Slain
For mere possessing
Of a golden chain.
I cannot bear
Remembering.
And worse, to think
That Victor must return
To such a horror.
His dearest brother
Dismembered brutally.FRIENDS
Elizabeth,
Be calm, no more.ELIZABETH
And mine the hand that hung
The chain about his neck
As invitation to the deed.CHARLOTTE
Your hand, Elizabeth
Is guiltless as your heart.ELIZABETH
Guiltless!
Dare you accuse Justine?
She loved that child
As I loved her.
A murderess -- Justine?
Because, her false accusers claim,
The locket I let poor William wear
Was found on her
And she could not explain?
And yet she swore -- and I believe --
That she was innocent.
If there is guilt, it's mine!
I hung that chain on William's neck
And by it my beloved Justine
Was hanged.
See where her poor dishonored corpse
Rots in a grave unhallowed.CHARLOTTE
Elizabeth,
Justine confessed.
ELIZABETH
Yes,
And now, in honor of her innocence,
When her confessor threatened to withhold
The sacrament,
Under that torture
She confessed.
But at the moment of her death,
In sacred confidence she swore
That she was innocent.
If you had held her hand,
If you had seen her tears,
You could not doubt her innocence.
Poor wretched girl, Justine!
I place this flower in her grave.(From a large bouquet, she takes a single flower and drops it into the open grave.)
As you hold yourselves my friends,
(Elizabeth's friends, led by Charlotte, advance one by one to take a flower from the bouquet. Each kneels to place it in Justine's grave, then slowly exits through the graveyard's iron gate. As the last member of the chorus departs, Charlotte returns excitedly.)
Place by this flower
Flowers of your own.CHARLOTTE
Elizabeth, he's here!ELIZABETH (faintly)
Victor?
CHARLOTTE
With Henry,
In his father's coach.
And oh, prepare yourself,
For he is changed!ELIZABETH (defiantly)
Victor -- changed?
Love cannot change.
Together, apart,
Love lives in the heart
And cannot change.The constant heart
Is beating always --
Awake, asleep,
In sorrow, in pleasure,
In anger, in pain,
The heart is ever the same.CHARLOTTE
How short his breath,
How slow his steps.
Scarce has he strength
To lift his feet.ELIZABETH
How long I've prayed for his return,
But now I feel a piercing fear.The constant heart
Is beating always.
In sorrow, in pleasure,
In anger, in pain,
The heart is ever the same.(Victor enters, with his father, supported by Henry. He takes a few weak steps toward Elizabeth.)
VICTOR (weakly)
Elizabeth, I have been near to death.
Elizabeth --(He breaks off, overcome by weakness and emotion.)
ELIZABETH (aside)
Love swells through my heart
Like the tides of the sea
That spill on endless sands,
For see, he stands
Beside me.VICTOR (aside)
Like the dove to its nest
My heart has come home
To the home it knows best,
And my love lies at rest
Beside me.ELIZABETH (aside)
Love swells through my heart
For see he stands beside me.CHARLOTTE (aside)
Like a moth to a flame
She is drawn to the doom
Of a misplighted troth,
And she can do naught
But fly to the light.HENRY (aside)
Love swells through my heart
Like the tides
As they surge on shore,
Love swells through my heart,
And I can do naught
But hear its roar
Inside me.VICTOR'S FATHER (aside)
Like the prodigal son
Of parables' fame,
My boy has come home
And my heart swells with pride,
With a terrible pride.ELIZABETH
Ah!
Like the light of the moon
At the noontide of night,
When it stands at its height
Love shines in my soul,
For I know you'll be soon
And forever beside me.VICTOR
My heart has come home;
My love lies at rest
Beside me.
Like the dove to its nest, etc.CHARLOTTE
Like a moth to a flame
She is drawn to her doom, etc.HENRY
Love swells through my heart, etc.
Like a moth to a flame
I am drawn to my doom.
My heart swells with love, etc.VICTOR'S FATHER
My boy has come home.
My heart swells with pride, etc.(At the end of the quintet, Elizabeth faints. Victor, hardly strong enough to move, stands still; Charlotte goes to help Elizabeth.)
CHARLOTTE
Henry, I need your help.(Scoldingly, as Henry and Victor's father take Elizabeth and act as Charlotte directs them.)
Why did not you wait below?
We must take her to the coach.
Gently, gently.VICTOR'S FATHER (turning back to address his son)
Are you not coming with us?
VICTOR
I must be alone awhile
CHARLOTTE (as she leaves)
Do not be long.
A storm will be upon us momently.(Charlotte follows the others offstage. Night begins to fall.)
Oh, that I might cease to think
Or that my will were stronger
And I could say,
I will not think on it again…
I cannot see a cripple in the street,
Or mourn this innocent dead girl,
But straight I see the limbs
My hands and knives have knit,
And fear and prophecy become
A single pulse in artery and vein.(A voice is heard behind Victor. It is the Creature, invisible in the darkness.)
CREATURE (implacable)
And even in the air you breathe
The scent of that prophetic fear
Will hang,
I'll cling to you,
And drink your strength and make it mine.
Believe it, Frankenstein, as you'd believe
The digits on this hand
That killed your brother and purloined the chain
By which this innocent was hung
Are five. And what these five
Have done they'll do again.
No crime so gross but it shall be the dug
At which these carrion lips shall suck revenge --
Until the shadow rules the man,
Until I've drained your soul
And made it mine.VICTOR (as if in a dream)
I will not think on it again…
And it will go away!(Throughout all this, the Creature has come closer and closer; now it stands directly before Victor.)
CREATURE
I am beside you now.
And when you crept into the cave
Of your delirium
1 always was nearby.
Through the window of the inn
I saw you being fed
And knew from that
The use of bread.
And when your friend
Addressed long monologues
To your unheeding ears
I listened close and aped
The motions of his mouth
To satisfy
The hunger of my lips
For speech.
Eat, he would insist,
And you would eat.
But to be aware of him --
That you would not, and so
He thought himself alone,
And spoke in perfect confidence --
To me!
Somehow I understood
His talk of love,
Of loyalty, of sacrifice --
And I'd go out onto the frozen lake
And howl the words I'd picked
Like thorns from his divided heart:
"You are the cause, Elizabeth!"(Distant thunder. During the following, the storm begins, and grows more violent.)
From your ravings, Frankenstein,
I learned a darker lore:
That all hearts are divided so,
Mere pumps that cause the blood to flow.VICTOR
Craven it was
In me to flee
As your flesh convulsed to life.
Long had I gazed on death's abyss:
Why then should sight of life
Awaken horror?
A climber, at the peak he's strained
To reach, can think of nothing
But the vastness opened to his view.
So was it as I moved from height to height
And held the key of life.
Enraptured so, how could I think
The gift of life could be bestowed
Except to bless?
Until I saw
Your gaze, until I heard
Your --CREATURE (angrily)
You fled!
VICTOR (weakly, offering his hand)
All I can do
To spare you further pain, I shall.CREATURE (grasping Victor's hand violently)
All you can you shall indeed!
This hand, which I could crush
Like bundled sticks, shall once again take up
Its knife!VICTOR (frightened)
What do you ask?
CREATURE (with great intensity)
Keener than hunger, endless
As the circling of my blood --VICTOR (frightened; beginning to guess the Creature's meaning)
Desire!
CREATURE (looking at Victor, as if to acknowledge that he's right)
I cannot sleep
Until I'm given
All I need.VICTOR (helplessly)
Desire is keenest
When it cannot be appeased.
Resign yourself --(The storm rages furiously.)
CREATURE (furious)
You lie! For I, I, I
Am myself the proof
That what I ask
Is yours to give.
Create -- create -- as you created me --
My female counterpart.(The storm is now at its height.)
VICTOR (terrified)
Never!
By all that's human, never!
CREATURE (scornfully)Weakling! Philosopher!
(indicating its own body)
You will create a woman limbed
With limbs like these,
Her face deformed.
For I've a right to live
And lust and breed like you.
Deny me, and I'll work at your destruction
Till I desolate your heart.(Loud thunder. The Creature pulls Justine's body from the grave, scattering the flowers placed on it. It stands leering, holding the body, silhouetted in a great flash of lightning.)
We will wait, my ladylove and I,
Where, at my birth, I was left to die.(It disappears with the body into the raging storm.)
VICTOR (desperately)
If I comply,
It's for your sake,
Elizabeth!(Curtain)