Lyric Fest: Kile Smith's 'In This Blue Room'

The texts for the songs came from the work of four poets, written in response to 16 batik paintings by artist Laura Pritchard. The paintings depict women’s faces in abstract and fanciful settings, and the poets were all women. Smith grouped the texts into a narrative that turns them into a dialogue between the mezzo and the baritone. When Teadt entered the scene in the third song, his easy, relaxed delivery turned Siobhan Lyons’s words into a love song addressed to the older woman depicted in the painting. “Dull your senses, be blue,” Teadt sang. “Your hair wrap holds tangles of wisdom. You should be giving the directions.”

“We want answers”

Later, the conversation developed gaps. The story ended with Teadt and DuPlantis staring at each other across the length of the stage, following a duet that ended: “We want answers. At least alignment.”

To me, that raised an interesting question. A male composer had turned an all-woman effort into a dialogue between the sexes. At the reception that followed the concert, I conducted a scientific survey and asked four randomly chosen women how they felt about that. Three of the women — a full 75 percent of my rigorously scientific sample — said they had no problems. The fourth said she hadn’t thought about that, and she wasn’t sure how she felt now that she had thought about it.

Personally, I think that’s a very good answer. We live in a time when the relationship between the sexes is going through a radical change. We are still trying to understand the implications of that change. The final settlement — if we ever achieve it — will mostly be shaped by millions of couples engaging in a lifelong process. In This Blue Room catches the emotional truth of that revolutionary moment in the history of humanity.

The four poets were volunteers who took up the challenge when artist Pritchard asked for poems that could add extra interest to her show. Lyric Fest’s pianist, Laura Ward, saw the show, and she and Suzanne DuPlantis decided Lyric Fest’s composer in residence should turn the poems into a song cycle.

By the time they were done, the premiere had become a multimedia event that included an exhibition of the actual paintings and slides that were screened as the songs were sung. Pritchard’s innocent request for poetry had expanded into another unforgettable episode in Lyric Fest’s unpredictable journey through the world of song.

For composer Kile Smith’s essay on composing In this Blue Room, click here.