Where Once by Mary Kouyoumdjian
submitted by marykouyoumdjian
on 07/31/17
1
music by Mary Kouyoumdjian libretto by Royce Vavrek performed by loadbang An imagined monologue for Arshile Gorky as he is painting his mother’s likeness in “The Artist and his Mother.” The lyrics are constructed from imagined memories, and contain a sense of poetic revisionism, functioning like a eulogy for the greatest loss of Gorky’s young life. Through the aria we get to see Gorky’s psychological process as he symbolically returns his mother to the familiar landscape of Lake Van.
