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1.
Antarctica 07:28
A monologue from Angels in America words by Tony Kushner Antarctica I feel better, I do, I...feel better. There are ice crystals in my lungs, wonderful and sharp. And the snow smells like cold, crushed peaches. And there’s something... some current of blood in the wind, how strange, it has that iron taste. Where am I? (looking around, then realizing) Antarctica. This is Antarctica! Oh boy oh boy, LOOK at this, I... Wow, I must’ve really snapped the tether, huh? I want to stay here forever. Set up camp. Build things. Build a city, an enormous city made up of frontier forts, dark wood and green roofs and high gates made of pointed logs and bonfires burning on every street corner. I should build by a river. Where are the forests? I’ll plant them and grow them. I’ll live off caribou fat, I’ll melt it over the bonfires and drink it from long, curved goat-horn cups. It’ll be great. I want to make a new world here. So that I never have to go home again. I can have anything I want here–maybe even companionship, someone who has...desire for me. There isn’t anyone...maybe an Eskimo. Who could ice-fish for food. And help me build a nest for when the baby comes. Here, I can be pregnant. And I can have any kind of baby I want. I’m going to like this place. It’s my own National Geographic Special! Oh! Oh! (She holds her stomach) I think... I think I felt her kicking. Maybe I’ll give birth to a baby covered with thick white fur, and that way she won’t get cold. My breasts will be full of hot cocoa so she doesn’t get chilly. And if it gets really cold, she’ll have a pouch I can crawl into. Like a marsupial. We’ll mend together. That’s what we’ll do; we’ll mend.
2.
Too Few the Mornings Be Too few the mornings be, Too scant the nights. No lodging can be had For the delights That come to earth to stay, But no apartment find And ride away.
3.
If All the Griefs I Am to Have If all the griefs I am to have Would only come today, I am so happy I believe They’d laugh and run away. If all the joys I am to have Would only come today, They could not be so big as this As happens to me now.
4.
The Bustle in a House The Bustle in a House The Morning after Death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth – The Sweeping up the Heart And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity.
5.
Letter to the World This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me – The simple News that Nature told – With tender Majesty Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see – For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen – Judge tenderly – of Me
6.
You Cannot Put a Fire Out You cannot put a Fire out – A Thing that can ignite Can go, itself , without a Fan – Upon the slowest Night – You cannot fold a Flood – And put it in a Drawer – Because the Winds would find it out – And tell your Cedar Floor –
7.
Bee! I’m Expecting You Bee! I’m expecting you! Was saying Yesterday To Somebody you knew That you were due – The Frogs got Home last Week – Are settled, and at work – Birds, mostly back – The Clover warm and thick – You’ll get my Letter by The seventeenth; Reply Or better, be with me – Yours, Fly.
8.
Poor Little Heart Poor little heart! Did they forget thee? Then dinna care! Then dinna care! Proud little heart! Did they forsake thee? Be debonnaire! Be debonnaire! Frail little heart! I would not break thee – Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me? Gay little Heart – Like Morning Glory! Thou’ll wilted be! Thou’ll wilted be! Poor little heart! Did they forget thee?
9.
I'm Nobody 02:26
I’m Nobody I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary –to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!
10.
How Happy is the Little Stone How happy is the little Stone That rambles in the Road alone, And doesn’t care about Careers And Exigencies never fears – Whose Coat of elemental Brown A passing Universe put on, And independent as the Sun Associates and glows alone, Fulfilling absolute Decree In casual simplicity –
11.
Estranged from Beauty Estranged from Beauty – none can be – For Beauty is Infinity – And power to be finite ceased Before Identity was leased.
12.
Will There Really Be a Morning Will there really be a “Morning”? Is there such a thing as “Day”? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like Water lilies Has it feathers like a Bird? Does it come from famous places Of which I have never heard? Oh some scholar! Oh some sailor! Oh some Wise Man from the skies! Please to tell this little Pilgrim Where the place called “Morning” lies!
13.
14.
Child 03:04
Child poem by Sylvia Plath Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color and ducks, The zoo of the new Whose names you meditate – April snowdrop, Indian pipe, Little Stalk without wrinkle, Pool in which images Should be grand and classical Not this troublous Wringing of hands, this dark Ceiling without a star.

about

When award-winning composer Ricky Ian Gordon heard Jennifer Zetlan, he knew he had found something special. After working on his Opera Morning Star together, the deal was sealed. They simply had to record an album together. That album is Your Clear Eye, an album that means to move the listener towards innocence with a sense that what was soiled can be made right, through honesty, through dreams, through the impulse to serve, through the fires of grief and through one's own fallibility...
Renowned soprano, Jennifer Zetlan - with the support of the composer behind the keyboard - embodies Kushner (Harper’s monologues from “Angels in America”) Dickinson, and Plath on an album of never before recorded works by Ricky Ian Gordon.

Track list:
1.ANTARCTICA (from Angels in America by Tony Kushner)
TOO FEW THE MORNINGS BE- Poetry by Emily Dickinson
2. TOO FEW THE MORNINGS BE
3. IF ALL THE GRIEFS
4. THE BUSTLE IN A HOUSE
5. LETTER TO THE WORLD
6. YOU CANNOT PUT A FIRE OUT
7. BEE! I’M EXPECTING YOU
8. POOR LITTLE HEART
9. I’M NOBODY
10. HOW HAPPY IS THE LITTLE STONE
11. ESTRANGED FROM BEAUTY
12. WILL THERE REALLY BE A MORNING?
13. NIGHT FLIGHT TO SAN FRANCISCO (From Angels in America by Tony Kushner)
14. CHILD poetry by Sylvia Path

About the Artists:

JENNIFER
Soprano Jennifer Zetlan is internationally recognized for her artistry and captivating stage presence. She has been seen and heard on opera and concert stages worldwide, as well as recital venues and on Broadway. In the current season, Ms. Zetlan performs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the American Museum of Natural History, reprising her role in Matt Aucoin’s Crossing with American Repertory Theatre, creating the title role of Rhoda in John Musto’s Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt for On Site Opera, and reprising her role as Fanny in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Morning Star.


Known for her passion for contemporary music, Ms. Zetlan has been featured in the premieres of numerous American operas, including Nico Muhly’s Two Boys (The Metropolitan Opera) and Dark Sisters (Opera Company of Philadelphia and Gotham Chamber Opera), Steven Stucky and Jeremy Denk’s opera The Classical Style (Carnegie Hall and the Ojai Festival), Daron Hagen’s Amelia (Seattle Opera), Ned Rorem’s Our Town (Aspen Music Festival and Juilliard Opera Center; Western US and NYC premieres), Matt Aucoin’s Crossing (American Repertory Theatre), Ricky Ian Gordon’s Morning Star (Cincinnati Opera), Louis Karchin’s Jane Eyre, and arias from David Diamond’s The Noblest Game (Seattle Symphony). Other contemporary works she has performed include Henry Purcell and Kaija Saariaho’s The Tempest Songbook (Gotham Chamber Opera), György Ligeti’s Requiem (American Symphony Orchestra), Osvaldo Golijov’s 3 Songs for Soprano (Lexington Philharmonic), John Tavener’s Requiem (Sacred Music in a Sacred Space at St. Ignatius Loyola), David Hertzberg’s Nympharum, (Juilliard Orchestra) and Richard Ayres’ In The Alps (Alarm Will Sound), for which her last minute substitution was described as “flawless” by the New York Times.


RICKY
Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956 in Oceanside, NY) studied piano, composition and acting, at Carnegie Mellon University. After moving to New York City, he quickly emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera, and musical theater. Mr. Gordon's songs have been performed and or recorded by such internationally renowned singers as Renee Fleming, Dawn Nathan Gunn, Judy Collins, Nadine Sierra, Kelli O'Hara, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Nicole Cabell, Frederica Von Stade, Andrea Marcovicci, Harolyn Blackwell, Betty Buckley, and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, among many others.


Ricky Ian Gordon’s most recent premieres include The House Without A Christmas Tree(2017, libretto by Royce Vavrek, commissioned and premiered by Houston Grand Opera) a holiday opera for young audiences that The Wall Street Journal describes as “a charming, family-friendly piece,” and a reduction of The Grapes of Wrath (2017 two-act version commissioned and premiered by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis) which the Chicago Tribune calls “a great American opera.”




credits

released October 26, 2018

Executive Producer: Louis Levitt
Produced by William Hobbs, Andrew Bove, Louis Levitt, Paula Mlyn
Engineered, Mixed, and Mastered by Andrew Bove
Edited by Andrew Bove and Mario Correa
Assistant Engineer: Doug Bove
Album cover art & design: Michael Muscarella
Photo credit: Fay Fox
Recorded 2018 at Gene & Shelley Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University in Union, New Jersey.


Copyright 2018 Bright Shiny Things
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Jennifer Zetlan & Ricky Ian Gordon New York, New York

Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956 in Oceanside, NY) .After moving to New York City, he quickly emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera, and musical theater.
Soprano Jennifer Zetlan is internationally recognized for her artistry and captivating stage
presence. She has been seen and heard on opera and concert stages worldwide, as well as recital venues.
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