Diligent Devotion: Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s Leadership at Thalbach

Image of the Annunciation as a Thalbach monastic seal (from the hand of Euphrosina Vöglin)

The women’s tertiary monastery of Thalbach in Bregenz benefited from a series of long-serving and devoted leaders. A peek into the short narrative descriptions of their convent efforts provides a glimpse into the varied emphases these convent administrators placed on spiritual life, governance, and the material well-being of the community. Some prioritized the stability of the convent’s finances, others focused on the education of the sisters, while still others devoted their attention to the aesthetics and soundscape of worship. In her thirty years of convent service, Maria Euphrosina Vöglin (r. 1683–1713; d. 1716) had a chance to embody all three. She shaped the convent through her personal devotional practices, her canny skills on the administrative front, and a marked sensitivity to the role of music and ritual in the convent’s spiritual life.

Diligently Devoted

At the end of the seventeenth century, Sister Maria Euphrosina Vöglin was elected Maisterin at Thalbach by the sisters and duly endorsed by the appropriate male clerics, including the Order’s Provincial. Euphrosina was a particular devotee of the Virgin Mary, for the Chroniclist tells us that she prayed her office fervently on a daily basis. Since, in a post-Tridentine environment, the Little Office of the Virgin – her presumed prayer focus – was normally assigned only to Saturdays and special feast days, we learn from this introduction that she was enacting a more-is-better faith practice, for she performed privately what was done more publicly in the convent’s regular cycle of prayer. In other words, the first thing we learn about Euphrosina is her exemplary faith; as convent leader she serves as a model to the other sisters, who should prioritize prayer even if it should fall outside of the bounds of performed liturgy.

Not only was she a faithful Catholic; according to the convent’s Chronicle, she served “laudably and well” as Maisterin for 30 years. Given her length of service, she developed skills as an able administrator. Some of her attention was architectural. It was during her reign that the monastery building refurbishment was completed, for instance, and she also expanded the choir; this may be the time when the interior window was added. Ludwig Rapp reports that she drafted a letter to the Mayor and Council of inner Bregenzerwald, in which she begs them for a “generous” contribution for her monastery. She points out that their need was great both architecturally and spiritually: “so that it does not fall into disrepair and the divine service and holy order's discipline do not disappear” (Euphrosina Vöglin petition, as quoted in Rapp 634).

She also focused on the nuances of the divine service “because of the music and the chorale,” as the Chronicle tells us. This I take to mean that she oversaw both the instrumentalists and the sisters’ own performances in services. The chroniclist confirms that “She also paid diligent attention to the fact that the divine service was held properly.” She was, in other words, a stickler for the forms and orders of the church, and also for the richness of their living and resonant sounds. She must have appreciated the multimedia appeal of the services. She also evidently recognized beauty itself as an element of spiritual life, for she also “had many beautiful vestments, antipendia and other things made for the church,” as we learn near the end of the Chronicle chapter.

I stress the distributed nature of the Chroniclist’s account, focused early on prayer placement and sound, and only later on visual splendor, since that suggests to me an element of hierarchy in the description of Euphrosina’s devotions. The assessment offered emphasizes what I suspect was the more unusual capacities that she brought – the aural and devotional – and left more stereotypical contributions of feminine handwork for the close of the entry. This also could reflect a gradual shift of Euphrosina’s physical efforts over time. Her active engagement with liturgy and prayer coincides in the account with her emphasis on bricks-and-mortar projects, a spiritual match to the physical enhancements of the cloister. The feminine handwork, in contrast, coincides with text focused on her  charitable work and her resignation of office at age 74.

In addition to her advocacy for prayer and worship, Euphrosina also led the sisters in more educational endeavors, for we know from Leroy Shaw’s theatrical research that she produced at least one Latin play (“De Theophila a mundi voluptatibus abstracta”) during her years in service. She also acquired Gallia vindicata (1594/r.1702) by Paolo Sfondrati, a defense of the Catholic Church’s position against the political and religious turmoil in late 16th-century France, demonstrating her interest in the broader landscape of Catholic counter-reformation polemics (Fechter). (She is not, however, the same Euphrosina Vöglin responsible for the book of prayers published in Augsburg in 1682; that Euphrosina was a widow, a Lutheran, and of the previous generation, dying the year before our Euphrosina ascends to the role as head of convent.)

Managing in Times of Hardship

Given the historical circumstances, Maria Euphrosina was required to guide the convent through hard economic times. The cost of grain skyrocketed, and a series of war taxes were imposed, so that the coffers ran thin. In response, she did two things. She appealed the taxes, which were bitterly high, and would have confiscated 1/3 of the convent’s lands (Thalbach Chronicle Gathering 2 fol. 6; Rapp, p. 633-4). As she wrote to a convent advocate in Constance, “we (the nuns) have no foundation, nothing superfluous, but we, 24 professed nuns, are barely able to provide the necessary maintenance of our order and poorly managed cloister, and we have no daily mass and no dedicated confessor." (As quoted in Rapp 631). We learn from other documents that some relief was awarded, perhaps because the sisters were able to demonstrate that they had to help with the farming by bringing in their own crops (!) (Rapp, p. 633), but ultimately they had to pay 40 fl. in war contributions in 1686, and pay the Turkish tax again in 1708 (Fussenegger, 123).

Euphrosina also indulged in some creative fundraising, and her own mother donated to the convent to help stabilize their finances. Well, sort of. Technically, her mom repurposed her brother’s funds for Euphrosina’s own use, and Euphrosina gave them outright to the convent (Thalbach Chronicle, gathering 2, fol. 6r). We have no evidence that her brother was happy with this outcome, but he didn’t try to retrieve the funds, either.

During these years of hardship, Euphrosina proved flexible: she might be a taskmaster in the context of the order of services, but demonstrated more compassion in the lives of the sisters. She arranged that during the 40-day fast of Lent when the convent was subsisting largely on fungi and herbs, they would have roasted meat on Sunday night (in contravention of the regular rules) in order to keep them hale (Thalbach Chronicle Gathering 2, fol. 6r). This practice seems to have been surprisingly common. The sisters of Kirchheim unter Teck similarly broke their fast when roasted meat was “all that was available” (Kirchheim Chronicle). Practical constraints meant that the choice of health with a few bent rules triumphed over near starvation in both contexts. Since many individuals paid their debts in the form of foods – a half a lamb, a basket of eggs, and so on –  pragmatism in a context of hardship might mean that the food available was the food consumed.

This pragmatism and empathetic management was rewarded by an increase in convent recruitment, particularly among the monied class. Large dowries were paid to the convent and material goods such as religious garments, bedclothes, breviaries, silver spoons and silver jugs were provided to the entering daughters, as mentioned in the dowry documents that Euphrosina so frequently signed in her role as Meisterin. (Bregenz KA 15 Schachtel 225A, Mitgleider).

Generous to traveling clerics and to the city’s poor, she was seen by the Chroniclist and convent alike as “a true child of the order” (ein getreyen ordnuß kind). After her death, the convent pledged to say a Pater noster and an Ave Maria for her every Sunday without exception, both a signal of their dedication to keeping her name in Convent memory and a curious observation about the ways in which conflicting demands could otherwise interfere with memorial practice (Chronicle Gathering 2, fol. 6r).

Life Context

Bregenz-born, Euphrosina had arrived at the convent in 1652 at age 13 under the birth name of Maria Franziska Vöglin. She lived there until her death in 1716. Curiously, these details (found in the Chronicle’s gathering 5) are separate from the discussion of her administrative service.  Her family was evidently poised for religious service, for her brother Anton Vogel was Abbot of Mehrerau (1681–1711) (see MehrerauKl, 2639)

What’s at Stake

Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s long tenure at Thalbach demonstrates how convent leadership in the early modern period was far more than a matter of spiritual devotion—it required financial acumen, political navigational skills, and an understanding of the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of worship. Her case challenges simplistic views of female monastic life as passive or cloistered away from the world; instead, she emerges as an active agent shaping not only her convent’s inner life but also their relationships to the civic and religious landscape of Bregenz.

By paying close attention to figures like Euphrosina, we gain insight into the lived realities of post-Tridentine monasticism, where prayer, administration, and survival strategies were deeply entwined. Her legacy, preserved in archival traces, folded in as an illustrative story in the house chronicle, and reiterated through convent memoria “without exception,” raises broader questions about the role of women in shaping institutional histories—who gets remembered, and how?

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Primary Sources 

Appointment of Antonius Vogel as abbot: Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Mehrerau Kloster, Charter 2639 (6. März 1681).

Kirchheim unter Teck Chronicle: edited in Christian Friderich Sattler, “Wie diβ loblich closter zu Sant Johannes bapten zu Kirchen under deck prediger-ordens reformiert worden und durch wölich personen,” in Idem, Geschichte des herzogthums Wurtenberg unter der regierung der herzogen, 5 vols (Tübingen, 1779–1783), vol. 4, Beilagen, Num. 42, S. 173–280. Note: Sattler 280 is also numbered 296.

Maria Euphrosina Vöglin’s seal (e.g. from a document of 1686)

Thalbach Chronicle (consulted from manuscript): Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9, Chronik des Klosters 1336–1629.

Thalbach membership documents: Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Klosterakten Schachtel 15, 225A–225C, Kloster Thalbach, Konventmitglieder, Aufnahmen und Abrechnungen, Erbschaften.

Secondary Literature 

Fechter, Werner. “Inkunabeln aus Thalbacher Besitz.” Biblos 25 (1976): 233–42.

Fussenegger, Gerold. “Bregenz: Terziarinnenkloster Thalbach.” In: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua 9 (1963): 93-140.

Jenisch, Georg Paulus. Davidischer Seelen [Funerary memoria for Fr. Euphrosina Vöglin]. Augspurg: Johann Jacob Schonigk, 1682. This book of prayers is dedicated to a different individual, one who had been married, lived in Augsburg, and died shortly before our Euphrosina took over as Thalbach’s Maisterin.

Rapp, Ludwig. Topographisch-historische Beschreibung des Generalvikariates Vorarlberg, Bd. 2.  Brixen 1896.

Shaw, Leroy R. “Georg Kaiser auf der deutschsprachigen Bühne 1945–1960,” Maske und Kothurn, 9(1963-12): 68–96.

 

Singing & Change on World Leprosy Day (1/26/25)

Images from three Indian Leprosy awareness videos

Leprosy (now more properly designated Hansen’s Disease) is a disease of almost overwhelming stigma. It can cause disfigurement and is associated with poverty, all the more so now that treatment is readily available. It is a disease that also causes us to attend to our social response, highlighting the tension between charity and revulsion, inclusion and fear.

The work that goes on around the globe on World Leprosy Day seeks to create social change – to reduce stigma, emphasize treatment and inclusion in community, and break the inter-generational cycle in which leprosy leads to isolation leads to reduced education and livelihood opportunities leads to poverty which leads again to leprosy.

While it’s early yet to see what will be issued for THIS year’s world leprosy day, I’d like to take up three examples of the campaign from previous years which provide a glimpse into the power that music has in these socio-medical campaigns. It is, in other words, an example of music as public health, and one that I like to talk about with students in my Music, Pandemics, and History class.

EXAMPLE 1: A Leprosy Awareness song
“Gandhi’s dream: India should be Leprosy Free”

The song conveys straightforward yet impactful messages.

One theme is that of awareness. “It does not spread by touching”; treat early; it’s eradicable. Also, finish your course of treatment, “medicine has to be given till the end.”

A second is working toward a more inclusive society: “We should get a little more, we should get all the rights, we should get a sense of belonging in the heart, the society should accept us from the heart, leprosy has to be eradicated from the body, mind and thought also.” Likewise, eliminate discrimination and avoid stigma by adopting a caring attitude -- “Avoid grudges or bad mouthing”; “Keep the patient happy with a loving face.” 

A final message is the fact that we are all implicated in this work: “Through a joint effort we can all make India free from leprosy.”

The music reinforces this vision in several ways. It adopts traditional Indian idioms and instrumentation. The musical style is approachable, trending toward pop. The presence of a lilting, danceable percussive backbeat, for instance, gives the performance energy. There’s a good deal of musical and verbal repetition, and sections are marked with dramatic gestures such as a rising swoop in the strings. There is a chorus that comes in to add richness to the texture. Put together, these choices are signaling that theme of collective effort together; just as this is “our music,” so is its challenge “our problem.”

EXAMPLE 2: Sparsh Awareness Campaign (A governmental educational program)
Theme: United for dignity

This initiative was a government-sponsored campaign to use a festival model to facilitate education and awareness of the disease. The performances include skits, dance, and song, in between giving speeches about the disease. The (edited) example here comes from Vellore district, and condenses the cultural offerings to focus in on the speeches that convey this 2022 message:

“The disease will not spread through treated persons. Hence all cured leprosy persons should not be neglected or disliked. The WHO Theme for SPARSH Leprosy Awareness Campaign 2022 is "UNITED FOR DIGNITY". Therefore, let us strive to uphold the honour and dignity of leprosy cured persons.” (Excerpt of the YouTube description)

At the beginning of the clip, we again get singing, this time by a woman singing in the traditional Indian style, celebrating the local region, Tamil Nadu. The song depicts the importance of local culture and the importance of state initiatives. This is followed by a traditional circle dance to sung accompaniment which visibly expands to include the community gathered in an outdoor venue. 

This initial set-up emphasizing music and dance creates a bridge between cultural pride and public health awareness messaging that follows. There is the familiar sound of local musical practice. The performances, though polished, are not unduly professional; they seem to stem from within the community. This is reinforced in the dance, where the circle of women visually segues into the circle of the listening audience, many of whom bob and sway to the sounds they are hearing. We have been brought from the joys of cultural expression into community, “United for Dignity,” which shares its appreciation for such beauty. The implication is that they will share as well in the understanding from the day’s educational program.

There’s a bit of slippage here: enjoyment of song, and enjoyment of message are portrayed as somehow equivalent. This is an important public health messaging strategy that we see on a variety of fronts (see AIDS awareness in Uganda, for instance). Music, dance, and other cultural expression draws in the crowd, garnering attention and preparing them for the harder-hitting messaging about disease safety, treatment, and the need for change.

Here in the Vellore video, that stratey is made explicit. After these initial song and dance excerpts, we cut to a series of speakers each of whom speaks from a seat in front of a poster about leprosy awareness. The poster behind the series of speakers is busy delivering text. It mentions symptoms (“loss of feeling”) but also seeks to normalize the disease; we should “treat it like TB.” Lastly, it makes the point that clinics will provide evidence-based care, there is “no experimentation” (!) in delivering treatment for the disease. As a backdrop, the poster is a bit overwhelming; the amount of text and the array of type-faces and colors seem to function more like a flag backdrop than a conveyance of information. Tired eyes might prefer instead to focus on the speaker, and maybe that’s part of its purpose. It is “official” without being “interesting.” Reading is work; listening is easier.

Indeed, what IS interesting, in contrast to the poster, are the series testimonials from individuals who have had the disease. These testimonials make up the central portion of this “Leprosy awareness day.” The first [in a google translation based on a notta.ai transcript], reads:

My name is Shafuddin. I am speaking from Vellore. My body has been damaged since 2001, so I went to the hospital. They said it is leprosy. In the hospital they said it will be cured by treating it. I took similar medicine for two years. The body recovered to some extent. Hands and feet are very nerve affected, there is a lot of pain, so they said that by doing an operation the hands will be cured. After doing the operation it got cured. I do my work myself. I can eat. I do all the work myself. There is no problem. Feeling good. Leprosy is not a bad disease. If you take the right medicine you will be cured.

This shared personal experience helps the audience understand the multiple treatment options. There were the meds, and then afterwards a surgical intervention. The success of his treatment and his subsequent independence would be important to anyone who fears that they themselves might be suffering. Moreover, his story demonstrates personal resilience and also the societal support needed to uphold dignity for those affected by leprosy. Shafuddin’s journey from diagnosis to recovery directly embodies the campaign’s call to honor the dignity of those affected by leprosy. Likewise, his ability to regain independence challenges stigmatizing narratives. His message, as I see it, reinforces the hope embedded in the festival's music and dance.

Later in the video (1.59) there is a masked and costumed dancer and supporting chamber ensemble; the elaborate costume and intricate steps contrast with the packed-earth dance circle and the backdrop of cow and crops. A second and then third character come in to enliven the skit. This cultural offering too is followed by impassioned speakers.

Alternation of entertainment and education keeps the audience engaged. Such alternations also subtly suggests that there is a “whole-life” experience in illness treatment. Just as we (here the we of the community audience and its internet echo) enjoy the singing and dramatic action, we – the united “we” of community – should enjoy our support for these companions who have suffered with the disease, and for their invisible compadres.

The video ends with a medical overview of symptoms and treatments, and an emphasis that treatment is free. The government is working to support eradication, and anyone who has the disease should be treated.

Here, we see music as an attention-getter, valuable for its entertainment value, and providing a forum in which other socially-critical messages can be sent. We also see music as a community-building element, identifying the “united we” of the messaging campaign. The visual placement – an outdoor festival setting, with birds and other nature sounds – create an ironically “homey” atmosphere, in which you are hearing from neighbors and compatriots about what is possible. And throughout, the upbeat music goes along with the upbeat message: Leprosy can be cured. That message is worth celebrating.

In short, I think this approach – blending traditional cultural expressions with modern health messaging – creates a shared space for education, empathy, and celebration of civic progress in a significant public health initiative. Like “Gandhi’s Dream,” the message here is simple: just as we collectively respond to the music, we should collectively respond to the disease itself. Through its blend of traditional cultural forms and modern health education, the Sparsh Awareness Campaign demonstrates the potential of music and other performative arts to transform public health initiatives into inclusive, community-driven movements.

EXAMPLE 3 An Award-winning leprosy awareness short (from 2003)

Dungarpur Films' 2003 award-winning short, recipient of the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA) Gold for the best public service film for leprosy awareness, delivers a powerful yet simple message: 

One intervention can make a difference. 

The film follows a woman and her son as they navigate the stigma surrounding leprosy and move toward the hopefulness of seeking treatment. It begins with the village headman’s stark declaration: “There’s no place in the village for leprosy patients.” This sets the stage for conflict, as the family’s diagnosis has sparked fear among the villagers, who seek to exile him and his mother so that the disease stigma doesn’t pass to the broader community.

Yet, one woman raises her hand and calls to the mother and son. She speaks out against exclusion, commanding them not to leave the village, but rather to go straight to the health center. She reinforces this message by publicly inviting the mother’s touch, hand to head. Her intervention shifts the focus from judgment to action and the narrative from vague crowd mutterings to crucial public health information: “A disease-free body… Leprosy is completely cured with MDT [Multi-Drug Therapy]. And this MDT is available completely free at every government health center.”

The film ends with a resolution—the mother and son are welcomed at the clinic, where they receive treatment. The final frame features the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP) symbol: four connected stick-figure hands alongside the message, “Join hands: eradicate leprosy.” This visual reinforces the short’s central theme of connection and collective responsibility.

At its core, the film frames stigma as a more pervasive and damaging issue than the disease itself. We initially sit with the discomfort of an unhappy village; we are grounded in the reality that the ill one might be ostracized. The disease is contagious, but attitudes are even more contagious. The woman’s intervention not only counters this stigma but also demonstrates the courage and compassion needed to enact change. By touching and interacting with the family, she visibly defies the rumor and shunning which had seemed increasingly normative. Her actions embody the film’s call for inclusion and understanding.

This act of bravery is pivotal. It transforms a moment of potential exclusion and banishment into one of connection and hope. The journey to the clinic becomes a metaphor for the broader societal journey—from ignorance and fear to knowledge and action. The message is clear: intervention, grounded in education and empathy, can dismantle stigma and pave the way for healing.

Her intervention is successful; we follow these characters as they move toward the clinic, receiving crucial public health information. Leprosy is completely curable. Treatment is free at all government health centers. There is a solution. We end with an arm around the shoulder in support – connection, not stigma, will solve the disease.

The film’s music underscores this narrative journey, amplifying the emotional stakes and reinforcing the thematic arc. At the start, the suspenseful score reflects the villagers’ tension and hostility. There’s a traditional voice, and threatening intermittent and unpredictable drum. We hear discussion and crowd noise. This is the acoustical chaos of bad things happening.

Yet, after a woman intervenes, we move toward acceptance and a resultant shift of musical idiom. A more hopeful lyrical voice emerges, as well as more instruments playing in a coordinated and more predictable way. We have a reiterated drone pitch to provide a harmonic reference point, making the point that stability comes from seeking treatment. So does optimism, for a series of arched phrases accompany images of the journey to the clinic – the boat, a bike and walk into the clinic. The highest of these vocal phrases is delivered as our patient receives her packet of medicine, not only a climax, but a happy one. Throughout this section, there is also more complexity in the drum rhythms, accompanied with the tinkle of high bells – a brighter timbre, with more interesting patterns. This is music that we want to listen to. It is music as “accompaniment to action.”

The music of this 90-second short, in other words, tells us that inclusion and intervention are the right choices, the ones that will lead to a positive, major-key kind of place. We have, in the final frame, the joy of treatment with the final high arched phrase. Layered over that is the visual cut-in – the NLEP symbol, and four connected stick-type figures, with the words of the final message: “join hands: eradicate leprosy.”

Dungarpur Films’ offering blends narrative, music, and public health messaging together in order to inspire change. By addressing stigma through a compelling story of intervention – by illustrating the transformative power of knowledge and empathy – the film leaves viewers with a clear and actionable message: inclusion and education can eradicate both the disease and its associated stigma.

The music, serving as both a narrative driver and an emotional guide, amplifies the film’s impact. From the acoustical chaos of exclusion to the lyrical harmony of hope, the soundtrack underscores the journey from fear to acceptance. Storytelling and music here foster understanding and community-building. The film's call to “join hands” remains as resonant today as it was in 2003: just as we collectively respond to music, we must collectively respond to disease and its societal implications.

TAKE-AWAYS

As we have seen in these three examples of leprosy intervention, music plays a vital role in public health. It bridges the gap between complex medical messaging and community engagement. Its ability to evoke emotion, foster community, and reflect local cultural values makes it a powerful tool for reducing stigma, promoting awareness, and encouraging positive collective action.

Whether through traditional idioms, modern compositions, or community-driven performances, music transforms abstract health messages into relatable, memorable experiences. By integrating music into campaigns, public health initiatives transcend mere information dissemination; they build empathy, solidarity, and hope, empowering communities to confront challenges together. Music, in essence, resonates not just in sound, but in its capacity to inspire societal change.

THANK-YOU'S

For more on Hansen’s Disease, see Documenting Lepers’ Lives: The House is Black (1962)

I would like to thank Avagail Hulbert, whose seminar contributions on India’s leprosy eradication programs introduced me to these and other compelling examples of music in public health. I would also like to thank my colleague and friend Gregory Barz, whose work on medical ethnomusicology was my first introduction to the topic. Lastly, I’d like to thank all those many people – musicians, film-makers, dancers, educators – whose capacity for empathy and commitment to optimistic service is the active force for good that makes real change happen in the world.

#pandemic #leprosy #music #PandemicMusic #India #PublicHealth #advocacy #WorldLeprosyDay #HansenDisease #PublicHealthCampaign

News-as-Opera: Shenton/Steyer’s On Call: COVID-19 (2021) (1/17/25)

Image includes the 6-box screen of characters and their fictional names

Today’s contribution is a review of a pandemic opera – one that I’ve just taught in my Music, Pandemics, and History class. Since not a lot has been written about the opera yet, I thought this overview might be helpful to the interested reader.

In the middle of the pandemic, the creative team of David Shenton and Christine Steyer took on the lived experience of COVID-19 directly. They focused their three-scene / one-hour opera on the voices of healthcare workers. Their information was, as they explain, well-researched, “drawn from 200 articles about health care workers facing the pandemic.” While news as opera may seem surprising, questions of moral codes and strong emotion – especially tension, fear, and hope – emerge from the script as part of its  operatic landscape. By the end, we care for the characters, as one should, and have traveled their story arc – from angst to connectedness and from outrage to hope. It is, as critics note, an “operatic love letter to global front-line healthcare workers.” The opera was also deemed successful by judges, for the first production was the winner of the National Opera Association Production Award and garnered 3rd place in the 2022 American Prize for Opera Production.

Set as a zoom call, the operatic performance cleverly begins with that moment of recognition: “Please wait. The host will let you in soon.” Yes, we all came to know that phrase all too well during the early stages of the pandemic. Likewise, as we move into the first scene, the mood of melancholy set by the Overture gives way to a frenetically repeated piano, underscoring the urgency in which the characters have been immersed. We meet the various characters, especially Sandra, the RN who has convened the group out of near-overwhelming frustration and a need for connection.

In this first aria, Sandra describes the nominal perks accorded the frontline workers, including fancy hotels and invitations to jump the queue (!), but points out “it all comes down to nothing” because she’s not able to see her own family. She snapped, she tells us, when the hospital started talking about pay cuts because of the lack of elective procedures. Pay cuts? In the middle of a pandemic? So her frustration boiled over into the need for this call/this opera.

The opera is divided into three scenes set several months apart: “Of the Heart”; “Just when things couldn’t get Worse” and “Tell Me Something Good.” Within each scene, several of the six healthcare working characters will share some part of their COVID-related experiences; Paolo, in “Fratelli” (I.3 – 17:25) explains the Italian penchant for balcony singing and its historical grounding, Gordon uses a refrain aria to articulate the frustration with a lack of progress in “One step forward” (II.2); Jane questions what we are all inheriting as a society, and whether it’s actually the good place that she was raised to see (“I’ve always been taught to respect my elders,” II.4).

Elements of the contextual news for the pandemic also peak through – for instance, Gordon’s experience (II.2) with the Beirut explosions, and Rolanda’s with deforestation in the Amazon, and the spaces it left for graves (II.3). A concatenation of negatives layers up in the closing part of scene 2, where five of the six characters pile on with their anger and worries about the way in which the pandemic has unfolded, until Sandra calls a halt to it all. 

CLIMAX AND RESOLUTION (AN EXCERPT)

In fact, if you only have ten minutes to sample the opera, this climax and its resolution across the boundary of the entr’acte into scene 3 is the part of the opera that I think is perhaps the most worth viewing. This section follows Jane’s aria, previously mentioned, where she balances respect for her elders and dismay at behaviors that have led us to the current moment with its multitudinous ills (39:24). Ultimately, she tells us (40:07), she finds herself “unable to remain silent.” The Ensemble joins in for a group layering up of concerns: (41:00) “the World leaders protected from accountability… (42:29) deny responsibility and find a scapegoat…” The libretto goes on to distinguish problems from dilemmas: “problems have solutions; dilemmas don’t.” And the pandemic for many countries is a dilemma. This leads into the climax, which is where we pick up:

The excerpt itself features several returning lines. At the start of the excerpt (45:00), we hear how the virus “brought planet to its knees.” And that in turn raises the repeated question, “…how did we come to this?” The layers of concern, each character adding thoughts and observations into a cacophony of stress, reaches a climax, prompting Sandra to intervene (45:41), saying “Stop, please, please, enough!” These calls began, she reminds everyone, as “a space for me to share,” and after making a claim for the usefulness of connections, asks the other characters to “promise me you will tell me something good” when they return.

As the excerpt continues, we segue (46:56) into a keyboard entr'acte, designed to shifts our mood for the upcoming arrival of the new year. It’s “Hard to believe” (47:33) that it’s been almost a year, the characters observe at the start of Scene three. After toasting the new year with wine and water, the characters share positive updates. Sandra has just gotten a second dose of the vaccine so is able to return home to her family; Mario speaks to the legacy of learning that he has from his grandmother, whose advice helped get him through a difficult delivery (50:06). It is a different sound-world than the echo-chamber scapegoating at the end of the previous scene.

 

THE REST OF THE OPERA

I’ve ended the excerpt there with Mario and his grandma, but further positive news then continues to unfold across the third scene – the availability of vaccines, the recognized wisdom as a legacy of a beloved grandparent, volunteers helping with ventilators. Sandra perhaps sums it up best: “it all comes down to nothing if there’s no one to share.” The opera ends with an ensemble number from our main characters: “Microbes older than us” and its second part, “We are healers.” The close is provided in memoriam with a virtual choir.

OPERA OVERVIEW

A viewer-based (rather than score-based) summary of the opera’s structure looks something like this:

 

Overture

Scene 1: Of the Heart (early April, 2020)

1.      Sandra’s aria

2.      Mario: “We called her Lily”

3.      Paolo: Fratelli

4.      Jane: O what an awful blight

5.      [Gordon and Rolanda passim]

Scene 2: Just When Things Couldn’t Get Worse (early September, 2020)

1.      [Action: report on Beirut, Paulo]

2.      Gordon: “refrain aria” “One step forward…”

3.      Rolanda “Amazonia from above”

4.      Jane: I’ve always been taught to respect my elders

5.      ENSEMBLE: Scapegoat

6.      [Stop, enough.]   >>>

Scene 3: Tell Me Something Good (New Year’s Eve, 2020)

1.      Sandra: 2nd vaccination

2.      Mario: Hard delivery; grandma Lily

3.      Jane: Family & pictures of the hospital

4.      Paolo: sung to high A

5.      Rolanda: volunteers help with ventilator

6.      Gordon: y’all

7.      Sandra: it all comes down to nothing if there’s no one to share

8.      ENSEMBLE: Microbes older than us

9.      ENSEMBLE: We are healers

10.  In memoriam (choral)

THE OPERA'S CONTEXT

As A.A. Cristi noted in their initial review, the opera not only told a significant story, but also provided a “meaningful project” for the singers “who have been hard-pressed to find work during the pandemic.” To record the opera, composer and pianist David Shenton laid down the piano tracks, which the singers used as they recorded their own parts – safely, and at home. Those samples were then merged as a single soundtrack, at which point production turned to the video portion. The singers were asked to lip sync, pretending to sing on Zoom, as Schering captures in his news coverage of the premiere.

In fact, the executive producer situates this performance for us in the playbill: “We have yet to meet in person.” This counts as a “remote ensemble” production. The relatively small forces – the orchestra is a piano and sometimes violin, and six singers in gender-flexible casting – reflect the challenges inherent in all our various “safer at home” quarantines impacted music-making world-wide.

Overall, this one-act is a remarkably approachable 21^st century opera, and has proven an effective entre to the genre for the non-music majors I’ve taught. The musical structure with its occasional use of refrains and its clear accompanimental markers to distinguish one section from another is relatively easy to follow. There’s perhaps more arioso than aria writing, but this keeps the action and events of the story line at its center. The singing of this performance is wonderfully done; my students voted for Paolo as the singer they’d most like to hear again. (It also helps that we’d just finished a unit on balcony music, and here it was, brought to life!)

Overall, the operatic takeaway is pretty simple: “kindness and compassion can be as powerful a tool as a vaccine and a ventilator.” Not a bad message for troubled times.

RESOURCES:

• Complete first performance of Shenton/Steyer’s On Call: COVID-19 (2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDb70FfOSMc. This video can also be accessed through the Bellissima Opera website.
• Playbill: https://bellissimaopera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/On-Call-Playbill.pdf
• Bellissima Opera: https://bellissimaopera.com/covidopera/
• Cristi, A.A. "Working In Concert Premieres ON CALL: COVID 19 An Opera Love Letter To Health Care Workers." Broadway World, April 12, 2021. https://www.broadwayworld.com/chicago/article/Working-In-Concert-Premieres-ON-CALL-COVID-19-An-Opera-Love-Letter-To-Health-Care-Workers-20210412
  
• Nelson, J. R. and Leor Galil. "A new Zoom opera honors the health-care workers fighting COVID." Chicago Reader, April 13, 2021. https://chicagoreader.com/music/a-new-zoom-opera-honors-the-health-care-workers-fighting-covid/
• Schering, Steve. "New international opera by Oak Park librettist tells story of health care workers battling COVID-19 pandemic." Chicago Tribune, April 16, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/04/16/new-international-opera-by-oak-park-librettist-tells-story-of-health-care-workers-battling-covid-19-pandemic/

 

 

To Banish the Earworm: "If We Were Married" by Shaina Taub (1/8/25)

An ear with three arrows containing identical music pointing at it

Last night, somewhat to my morning chagrin, I taught “If we were married” from Shaina Taub’s Suffs (2022) in my Women and Music class. I’d seen the whole musical in the Fall, and this jaunty hit about gender discrimination in marriage back in the 1910s stuck with me. Our classroom take-away: music in good hands can function effectively as feminist critique. However, I had an additional personal take-away: bits of the song have been stuck in my head all morning.

The song is sung in alternation, Dudley leading and Doris providing a gender-informed counter-perspective to each of his observations. It’s a familiar set-up, one most of us would recognize as informing the structure of Stephen Sondheim / Leonard Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story. In each song, we swing from one perspective to another at a lively clip. Bernstein’s perspective juxtaposes Rosalia’s nostalgia for Puerto Rico with Anita’s tart rejoinders:

WEST SIDE STORY (Broadway lyrics)

ROSALIA: I'll drive a Buick through San Juan.
ANITA: If there's a road you can drive on.
ROSALIA: I'll give my cousins a free ride.
ANITA: How you get all of them inside?

(This is reframed as a dialog of women vs men in both of the film versions, but the song is well worth a re-listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQEddtFN3Q )

In comparison with Bernstein, Taub’s exchange between Dudley and Doris gives each character more extended space to elaborate on their perspective. She builds an antecedent-spun-out-consequent phrase pair instead of a single phrase each like the West Side Story number:

SUFFS

• DUDLEY: If we were married / I'd promise to cherish you just as a gentleman should
• DORIS: If we were married / I'd promise to forfeit my legal autonomy <syncop> for good
• DUDLEY: If we were married / We'd buy our own acre of land for our own little house
• DORIS: If we were married / Our possessions and property would solely belong to the masculine spouse
• BOTH: If we were married (if we were married) / If we were married

Cherish or forfeit: the gendered nature of the marriage divide is laid out clearly in Taub’s narrative, and the clever rhyming of house with its imagined future of belonging “to the masculine spouse” sets the groundwork of the song firmly into the space of feminist advocacy. Doris is, after all, secretary for the suffragist organization, and so grounded in the bureaucratic and legal realities of women’s (absence of) rights.

But while Bernstein’s “America” breaks into the famous hemiola ( 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1 & 2 & 3 &), Taub uses a different strategy to enliven her narrative. Having already spun out the consequent clause into two units, the second strophe breaks down in the fourth line, as Doris’s iteration of women’s legal and economic oppression refuses to fit to the planned structure. 

• DUDLEY: If we were married / We'd fill out our family, and life would be simply sublime
• DORIS: If we were married / I'd sure have your children, 'cause <syncop> contraception's a federal crime
• DUDLEY: If we were married / We'd save up a nest egg to cushion us later in life
• DORIS: If we were married / My earnings would be in your name / And I couldn't control my own spending / Or open a bank account, or sign a contract, or hire a lawyer / Because economically speaking / I die by becoming your wife
• <PAUSE>
• BOTH: If we were married (if we were married) / If we were married

How does that work? Doris’s frustration with inequality is made manifest by insistent and extended repetition. Instead of an antecedent and two consequent phrases (b1 and b2), we get stuck on b1, which is itself made up of a three note rising motive – for a total of fifteen statements, instead of three!

DORIS: 

•   a    If we were married /
• b1    My earnings would be in your name /
• 2 And I couldn't control my own spending /
• 3 Or open a bank account,
• 4 or sign a contract,
• 5 or hire a lawyer /
• 6 Because economically speaking /
• b2    I die by becoming your wife

We had already known to listen to Doris as the “interesting” partner. She uses syncopation – pausing where we were expecting sound, and then delivering some kind of “kicker” clause. I’d be giving up my rights, she says. For good. It’s a clever rhythmic framing.

The second half of the song has a contrasting segment in which Doris muses about how women buy into the patriarchal system: “Daughters are taught to aspire to a system / Expressly designed to keep 'em under control.” She bemoans the legality of domestic violence within marriage – a situation which surprises Dudley (and in the story line helps to awaken him to the need for the suffrage movement, moving him toward a role of advocacy), asking the kicker: “Can you believe it is 1916 / And all of these things are still actually true?”

Questioning patriarchal systems is serious stuff, but set here to a boppy tune with swing overtones. The humor helps to frame the lesson in ways that the protagonists (and the audience) can hear the disconnect of romance and reality, and recognize for themselves the injustice of that very disconnect.

Why am I writing about it? Because after hearing it, it totally got stuck in my head, particularly the repeated “if” clauses (“if we were married…”) and also Doris’s rolling extension of the second stanza. Both those parts invoke underlying and ongoing worries I have about historical echoes, since injustices from 1916 have uncomfortable resonances with the present day. 

But also, and perhaps more importantly, the tune is just plain sing-songy – simple, approachable, and repetitive without being boring. And it swings. In short, the front part of the song can definitely be classed as earworm worthy!

And now, having paid “If we were married” close attention (yes, brain, okay, we can spend time with it), now I’m going to go put on some Hildegard, and settle into my administrative duties for a while.

Happy listening. May your earworms be pleasant teases for you, just as this one has been for me!