Emmeline is an opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker

Tobias Picker

Tobias Picker is an American composer. Picker began composing at the age of eight and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School and Princeton University, where his principal teachers were Charles Wuorinen, Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt...

 with a libretto by JD McClatchy. Picker's first opera, it was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe Opera

The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

 company and premiered in 1996. It is based on the book Emmeline

Emmeline (book)

Emmeline is a book by Judith Rossner. Published in 1980, Emmeline details the local legend of a woman who becomes ostracized by everyone in her hometown in Maine after a shocking long-held secret becomes public. The story is a fictionalized account of the life of Emeline Bachelder Gurney. Both...

 by Judith Rossner

Judith Rossner

Judith Perelman Rossner was an American novelist, best known for her 1975 novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which was inspired by the murder of Roseann Quinn and examined the underside of the seventies sexual liberation movement. Though Looking for Mr. Goodbar remained Rossner's best known and best...

 and is the story of a 19th century Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 woman who has an illegitimate son who is taken away from her just after birth and raised by others; twenty years later she unwittingly marries him and, when the secret is discovered, she is abandoned by her son and ostracized in her town until death.

Roles

Role	Voice	Premiere Cast, 1996 (Conductor: George Manahan)
Emmeline Mosher	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Patricia Racette Patricia Racette Patricia Lynn Racette is an American operatic soprano. A winner of the Richard Tucker Award in 1998, she has been a regular presence at major opera houses internationally. Racette has enjoyed long-term partnerships with the San Francisco Opera, where she has been a regular performer since 1989,...
Matthew Gurney, a railroad worker	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Curt Peterson
Mr. Maguire, factory supervisor	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Victor Ledbetter
Aunt Hannah Watkins, Henry Mosher's sister	dramatic contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...	Anne-Marie Owens
Henry Mosher, Emmeline's father	bass	Kevin Langan
Mrs. Bass, owner of the boarding house	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Josepha Gayer
Sophie, older girl at the mill	soprano	Melanie Sarakatsannis
Pastor Avery, pastor in Fayette, Maine	bass	Herbert Perry
Hooker, foreman at the mill	tenor	Wright Moore
Harriet Mosher, Emmeline's sister	soprano	Michelle Bradley
Simon Fentom, Emmeline's suitor	baritone	Gregory Keil
Ella Burling, girl at the mill	soprano	Mary Jane Kania

Synopsis

In Act I, the Mosher family has just finished burying another child and Emmeline's Aunt Hannah convinces her father to send Emmeline to work in the mill so that she can send money back to the family. Once at the mill, Emmeline is sent to live in a lodging house directed by Mrs. Bass, yet she is seduced by Mr. Maguire, a factory supervisor married to the mill owner's daughter. When Emmeline is discovered to be pregnant, she is expelled from the mill and sent back to her aunt. Her aunt conceals the pregnancy from Emmeline's parents and arranges for a couple to adopt her child, raising it as their own. She does not even tell Emmeline if her child was a girl or a boy, feeling it will be easier to forget the child that way.

In Act II, twenty years have passed and Emmeline is unmarried, remaining at home. Various suitors propose, but she rejects them all on account of her hidden past and shame, saying "marriage is not for the likes of me." Then Matthew Gurney, a new boarder, takes up residence in their house. They both share an immediate attraction, and Emmeline helps Matthew with his reading. After several months, when Matthew's job presses him to move on, he explains he's staying and wishes to marry Emmeline. Emmeline's father objects, but she accepts the proposal. They marry and begin building a house, but soon Emmeline's mother dies. Aunt Hannah returns to attend the funeral but, when she is introduced to Matthew, she recognizes him as the child she took away from Emmeline. Matthew runs away after the secret is revealed, but Emmeline refuses to leave herself, saying she is waiting for her child. She remains in her and Matthew's unfinished house, utterly alone.

Recording

Tobias Picker: Emmeline (Patricia Racette, Anne-Marie Owens, Curt Peterson, Victor Ledbetter et al.; Santa Fe Opera; Conductor: George Manahan). Albany Records 284/85

Sources

• Steve Behrens, Tragic legend returns to public TV, retold this time as an opera, Current, July 22, 1996. Accessed 8 January 2008.
• Bernard Holland, 'Exploring The Heart Of Lyrical Americana', New York Times, April 2, 1998. Accessed 8 January 2008.