Image of a minor chord and a graveyard (at Shiloh)
Musical choices matter. They matter in life, and they matter in the
rituals of death as well. They represent the person and that person’s
values, choices, and (with luck) tastes. Funeral music, in
particular, does more than fill silence; it becomes a final gesture,
shaping how we remember and are remembered.
Having recently gone
through the experience of choosing music for a family funeral myself,
I know that those choices are constrained by the hosting
institution, by the capacities of the performer, and by the sheer
quantity of “absolutely not, I cannot abide that drivel” that
abounds in the funeral industry. Tasteless pop pablum: not the way
our dear-departed should be ushered out of the land of the living. We
ultimately had a meaningful ceremony, though not without hitting
discussions of option B, option C, and let’s circle back and see if
option A will pass the minister’s attention. (It did.)
Happily, my husband
and I have had our lists of “recommended listening” for our
own funerals in a folder on a just-in-case basis. We
should both revisit it; those lists are from long ago, and newer
music has penetrated our awareness. But we did that work in uncertain
times, and it’s nice to know that if a family member were faced
with having to orchestrate a remembrance ceremony (heavens forfend),
they’d have someplace to start.
These existence of
such lists show a bit of where I come from: as a musicologist, the
idea of remembering me through something musical is a meaningful
offering – much like a shared favorite poem or the sunrise pictures
that will give folks a taste of the additive joys of my life. So much
beauty, here, have some, and savor what I loved.
But here’s what
brought that admittedly macabre topic to mind: Brian Fairley in a
recent Journal of Sonic Studies article talks about a 1967
Georgian funeral at which, well, I’ll let his
words tell it:
As the casket of
the singer and choirmaster Artem Erkomaishvili lay in state at the
municipal theater in Ozurgeti, a reel-to-reel tape player clicked on:
Weep for me,
brothers and friends, relatives and acquaintances. Only yesterday I
talked with you, yet today my hour of death has come. And now I will
go to that place where there is neither hypocrisy, sorrow, nor
wailing, where the slave and master stand together. (Erkomaishvili
1980: 17)
The
voice was Erkomaishvili’s own, reciting a portion of the Orthodox
Christian rite for the dead.
The singer had recorded the
“Rite of Mourning” for his own funeral, using multiple tape
recorders to overdub the three-part chants himself. He had also
requested a performance by the Gordela ensemble as well. “Hey,
there’s this group I’d like to sing” is one level of control.
But “Hey, I’ve made a single-occasion sound recording for my
funeral? That’s a level of involvement in the end-of-life ceremony
that frankly had never occurred to me. It was a moment as a reader
that I stopped cold. Wait, what?
But as I’ve pondered this
incident, I’ve come to realize that it’s not so strange. At Sally
A’s funeral, for instance, there was a performance of an
arrangement she’d written of a song she’d loved. Or
wait, was it a recording of her actually singing? The details now
blur, but I remember the moment of poignancy – her hands, her mind,
her musical choices shaping what we, gathered to celebrate her life,
had shared together in community.
And we are becoming
familiar with posthumous “holographic” tours – Tupac
Shakur at Coachella (2012); Roy Orbison’s In Dreams: Roy Orbison
in Concert (2018); “The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa” tour
(2019); and the Whitney Houston tour (2020-2022), described by its
promoters as “the most awe-inspiring and immersive live theatrical
concert experience ever.” Yes, “live theatrical concert” of a
dead person. I get it: the music lives on.
To be honest, such
holographic recreations remind me of the glitz of the whole
“immersive Van Gogh” media extravaganza; digitized and mediated
remembrances of something that at its core once mattered to us, now
repackaged and aggrandized as commercial re-imaginings with high sales
potential (and juicy ticket costs).
But these things speak
together as well of the nature of music as a path to remembrance.
For music lingers. It resonates in the unswept corners of memory and
in the silences that follow loss. Whether it’s a congregation
joining in a well-worn hymn, a voice echoing from an old
reel-to-reel, or a digitally-animated likeness on stage, music allows
us to summon the presence of the departed – sometimes tenderly,
sometimes theatrically, but always powerfully.
In that way, funeral music
is more than background. It offers structure, offering shape
to grief. It is a connecting gesture, extending a hand to the
mourners. And it gives voice – sometimes literally – to the dead
by giving them a final say in how they wish to be remembered.
As technologies evolve and
expectations shift, so too do the multitudinous ways we humans craft
sonic presence in rituals of parting. What remains constant is our
human need to hear, to remember, and to let music speak where words
might falter.
So write your description.
Compile that playlist. Or even make that recording, if you wish.
Choose with care. Because someday, someone will press play – and in
that moment, you’ll be present, shaping new memories.
Special call-out to Brian Fairley, who makes a complex argument in
his “Singing at Your Own Funeral” – about socio-political
contexts for musical recordings in 20thc Soviet Georgia,
about the role of family stories as historical documents, about the
nature of the heroic and learned singer, and of the nature,
importance, and sometimes impermanence of technology. You should
definitely read the whole thing!
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 hercharitable 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?
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.
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.
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.
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’swith 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 21st
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.
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?
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!
