There a number of aspects to this project that I feel make it unique:
I want the music to highlight the drama that's inherent in Frankie's story in an authentic way, so that when audiences leave a performance they feel empathy for her, are moved by her story, and are angered by the injustices she endured.
Requiem for Frankie Silver isn't a musical comedy with a story-book ending. It's violent and raw. But there are also moments of joy and acts of human kindness that help temper the somber tone. At the center is a sweet teenage girl who--even with the horrible cards she was dealt--managed to maintain her faith, her love of family, her memories of happier times, and her trust that a better life is on the horizon.
I am pleased and honored that composer Craig Carnahan and librettist/conductor Craig Fields have created a musical drama inspired by my novel The Ballad of Frankie Silver. Frankie Silver, an eighteen-year old girl unjustly hanged for murder in 19th century North Carolina, had long been forgotten until my novel revived interest in her story, a tale of a legal system that failed a desperate young woman on the Carolina frontier. After her execution in Morganton on July 12, 1833, Frankie’s body was collected by her father and brother, who buried it that night in an unmarked grave deep in the woods far from her mountain home. She had no funeral, and more than a century would pass before a local historical society would erect a grave marker.
Aside from this musical work’s greater ambitions to underscore the cause of justice for the poor and friendless, I see it as a requiem for that young frontier girl, and as I wrote the narration for the musical work, I tried to express what she would have wanted to say. As we look forward to the October 2020 premier performance, we are reminded that after nearly two centuries Frankie Silver will be formally mourned and consigned to eternal peace with beautiful music. One cannot restore her life or even secure her a posthumous pardon, but at least she will be shriven in song, and long remembered.
The genesis of Requiem for Frankie Silver was like looking at my rearview mirror while trying to watch the road ahead. The things glimpsed in the mirror, however, proved to lead to an unforeseen, astonishing result: a music drama!
Kirk and I agreed to commission Craig Carnahan to compose a choral work for Sonomento, without any clear idea of what that would look like. We knew that it would be choral music that made a statement about social injustice. An old idea from twenty years ago popped into my rearview mirror: adapt Sharyn McCrumb’s novel, The Ballad of Frankie Silver. Years ago, I had been envisioning an operatic treatment. A work of that size is ambitious. Our neophyte company, Orpheus Music Project, did not have the means to produce a full opera as our first major undertaking.
I was still set on using this story. Then, other crazy ideas appeared in the rearview mirror: Delete the novel’s contemporary saga of Fate Harkryder from our adaptation and combine Frankie’s story with a Requiem mass, memorializing her premature passing. With two major components nailed down, a choral setting of a requiem mass and a compelling story about social injustice, we still needed a device for conveying the intricate plot line without sets, costumes and staging. Introducing narration into a modified concert presentation proved to be the answer.
Now it was clear to me:
A music drama is born … thanks to my magical rearview mirror!