Sante and Augustine - Presentation

Synopsis

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Track 1 | Track 2

Sante is a story of love and betrayal set in the weeks running up to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. In 100 days, Hutu militia killed up to one million Rwandans during a massacre of Tutsis and those Hutus who sympathised with them.

Sante, a young Hutu woman, is engaged to Obietu, a Tutsi. In other times this would be normal, but political tensions in Rwanda have developed between the com-munities. However, Augustine, the village priest who has been a father figure to Sante, agrees to marry them. Unknown to all but Augustine, Sante is a visionary and has recently been experiencing terrible premonitions of death. Augustine advises Sante not to tell Obietu about these forebodings. He says she would be seen as a witch. Believing Sante is simply unwell, Obietu leaves the village for a few days to find a cure for her.

Anastase, a young handyman at Augustine's church, has found out Sante's secret. He blackmails Augustine into persuading Sante to marry him. He inflames the situation by putting up an aerial on the church, through which the national radio station pumps out anti-Tutsi propaganda. When Augustine refuses, Anastase says both he and Sante will be branded Tutsi sympathisers. Scared by his words, by Sante's continuing apocalyptic premonitions and a desire not to lose his daughter, Augustine agrees to Anastase's plan. Sante refuses, shocked at what she sees as her father's betrayal.

In the final scene, Obietu returns to find Sante locked in the church. Against Augustine's wishes, he releases her and they plan to leave the country. By now, Sante has utterly rejected Augustine as a father. Before they can leave, Anastase enters with a group of villagers. Seeing Sante with Obietu, he presses Augustine to reveal her secret, threatening him if he does not. The priest must now decide either to protect a daughter who has turned against him - and possibly share her fate - or tell the villagers her past.

The opera is in two acts with seven scenes that alternate between vision sequences and real-life sequences. At the beginning, the two worlds are clearly separated; as the opera progresses the line between the increasingly dark world of Sante's visions and the scenes of 'everyday' life becomes blurred until, in the final scene, we do not know what is real and what is imagined.

Instrumentation

Violin, viola, cello, double bass, oboe, clarinet, tenor trombones (2), percussion (2), harp, accordion, electric bass guitar.

Composer's note
Emily Hall

Our collaboration has been quite a process of 'give and take': Kit pushing for dramatic clarity while I often pressed for space for musical invention. A recurring issue in my mind has been musical uniformity versus dramatic painting, and achieving a good balance seems to be the key to operatic writing. I have really enjoyed working with Kit's libretto and it has certainly pushed my music in unexpected directions.

In preparing to write the scenes, I listened to a lot of Rwandan traditional music, then stored it away in my subconscious. Although some kind of influence is evident I hope, I have in no way attempted to get close to recreating Rwandan music, as the project is far from being a documentary. The choice to use solely western percussion instruments I think illustrates my point.

The two scenes I chose to set are totally different. The first is very static, allowing me an enormous amount of freedom, whereas in the fourth scene I felt a strong chemistry between the drama and the momentum in my music. I used the first scene as an opportunity to outline the main harmonic themes of the opera, giving it an overture-like function. The almost obsessive downward motion of the vocal lines in the fourth scene is supposed to represent the fatalistic feeling of this pivotal scene in which the characters plunge deeper and deeper towards the murderous deeds they eventually commit.

Librettist's note
Kit Peel

This project was very much a leap into the unknown for me. I'd almost no experience in dramatic writing or, unlike Emily, of collaboration on a creative project.

I think years of writing articles on commission and having editors want draft upon draft helped with the latter. We set about the project professionally, which let us give and take criticism in a very positive way and learn from each other. Collaboration, with Emily and people brought in by the organisers, has been an invaluable experience.

After putting together the treatment for Sante, I went to Rwanda and did what I could to improve my understanding of the country. I also tracked down and spoke to the last of the visionary girls left there.

I enjoyed writing the libretto. I felt it was like marrying three things at once: taking the precision of poetry, matching it to the driving plot lines of a novel and at the same time constantly imagining how it would work visually. It was a real challenge to shape a lot of story into so few pages, ensuring that an audience would be able to follow what was going on even if they couldn't hear all the words.

Joint statement
by Emily Hall and Kit Peel

When we agreed to collaborate on an opera, we both knew we wanted a contemporary story with a strong narrative. Sante had its origins in a true story Kit remembered of three girls in Rwanda who had visions of the Virgin Mary followed by premonitions of the genocide. Emily suggested focusing equally on the visionary aspect as well as the narrative side of the story, giving her scope for a comprehensive large-scale musical form.

After Kit wrote the libretto, we discussed scenes which needed work or which posed a problem to Emily musically. This collaboration, typical of the way we set about this project, helped us simplify and strengthen the libretto. In addition, the workshop in Aldeburgh gave us valuable input from singers, writers, librettists and directors.

We have recently teamed up with director Tim Supple and have really benefited from his insights and advice. As opera newcomers, we are on an exciting learning curve!