In this latest update I am catching on materials from the summer. Here I am sharing with you the live performance and masterclass from Aspen Music Festival on 10th August of my opera scene This is Jane. The video below includes an introduction to the scene by the director of composition Chris Theofandis, followed by a performance by Meredith Stemen, Sarah Fleiss, and Alexis Semenario, then followed by masterclass from opera composer Matt Aucoin. The work was performed to an almost packed Wheeler Opera House in the centre of Aspen, of around 300 people.
This scene is based on the real-life story of the Jane Collective, and engages with the powerful emotions that are involved with, and arise from, abortion.
Jane were a group of women that came together to create the Chicago-based underground Abortion Counselling Service in the years before federal protections. When faced with the anti-abortion laws of the United States and the lack of equality in abortion access, they worked together across race, class and religious divides to help pregnant people obtain safe abortions. While at first Jane arranged for them to go to doctors or other practitioners who would provide abortions ‘off the books’, the members of the collective later learned how to perform abortions themselves, making the procedure more affordable and accessible. Between 1969 and 1973, Jane performed more than 11,000 abortions, never losing a single patient. At a time when reproductive rights are again being suppressed and abortion is being outlawed, I believe that the story of Jane has powerful relevance and resonance in the current climate.
As a 2024 composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, I developed this opera scene that was focused on this story setting the text of librettist Kendra Preston Leonard. The scene portrays two Jane members as they grapple with one of the ethical dilemmas that circumstance forced women to confront during this time. Jane started using people who were not doctors to provide the abortions. This scene portrays two members of Jane as they grapple with the ethical dilemma of using non-doctors to provide abortions. This scene reveals ‘Kate’ discovering this from her fellow Jane member ‘Rosie’ who already knew that ‘doctor’ Nick wasn’t really a doctor, and that she has also been trained by him to carry out the procedure. This scene reveals the difficult realities that women had to endure, confronting and discovering this painful truth and the betrayal of being kept in the dark about this necessary but difficult reality.
This scene was performed at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House on 10th August 2024 and generated visceral and positive responses from the audience; some audience members were moved to tears and I have had numerous follow-on conversations which spoke to the powerful emotions my scene evoked. One audience member told me that this scene had spoken to a generation of women feeling as though they were being heard and their story finally being told, a story with poignant and desperate relevance today. This reaction has made me more assured than ever in the need to develop this scene and story into a full-length opera. Kendra and I will now work on finding time and resources to develop a full plot and put a pitching document together to send to various opera houses and companies. Wish us luck! In the meantime I hope you enjoy listening to the scene and the interesting commentary through the masterclass after it as well. You can follow the libretto below too!
| Libretto:
This Is Jane based on a real story libretto by Kendra Preston Leonard music by Angela Elizabeth Slater
Setting: It’s early 1972. ROSIE is seated at a table or desk with a stack of index cards on one side. She’s on the phone and writing on another index card.
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| ROSIE
Hi, this is Jane. Can you tell me the date of your last period?
One of our counselors can meet you tomorrow at three. She’ll give you all the information you need. Let me get your address.
Great, bye. (She hangs up the phone.)
(to herself) Who’s next? (She picks up the next card in her stack.)
Mary Ellen, twenty-three. Already has a girl and a pair of boys.
What’s wrong?
ROSIE
(calm) Because I already knew.
(matter-of-factly) Nick is trained, he’s good, he’s clean. He’s better than the actual doctor we had before.
Nick is trained, he’s good, he’s clean. Nick is trained, he’s better than the actual doctor we had before. Nick is trained. He’s good. Nick is trained, he’s good, he’s clean. He’s good, he’s clean. He’s better than the actual doctor, than the actual doctor. He’s better than the actual doctor, than the actual doctor we had before, we had before! |
KATE
Off stage
KATE enters, angry and emotional. She slams her handbag down on a table.
(highly agitated) “Doctor” Nick isn’t really a doctor. He got trained by a doctor, but he’s not one himself!
I heard him talking to Lanie—and she knew!
These women trust us! They trust us, they trust us, they trust us to take them to a doctor, and we didn’t.
We’ve been lying. Lying! We’ve been lying. Lying!
(frustrated) Fuck! KATE How can you be so calm, sitting there?
(shocked) What?
He’s not a doctor-
(panicky) This is all a sham, Rosie. We should stop. This is all a sham, Rosie. We should stop. We should stop. This is all a sham Rosie. We should disband! This is all a sham Rosie Rosie, we should stop, we should disband! What if something goes wrong? What if something goes wrong? |
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What doctor would work with us this much, Kate?
What doctor, what doctor would work with us, this much? What doctor?
What doctor would work with us this much, Kate? this much, Kate?
Nick does fifteen abortions a day, more than any regular doctor,
with no complaints from, with no complaints from anyone, with no complaints from anyone
ROSIE no complaints, no complications no complications, nothing!
Nick does fifteen abortions a day, more than any regular doctor, with no complaints, from anyone, no complications, nothing.
Which we treated right away.
And she was fine. And she was fine.
and, and besides –
He trained Lanie and me.
If he’s not a doctor, and he can do it, then we can do it too.
We’re safe and clean.
This is the future of Jane –
women caring for women.
Listen Kate: If we don’t use him, we can charge alot less, help a lot more women.
(emotional) When we do it ourselves, we’re liberated, we’re liberated from relying on men.
(back to being matter-of-fact) And we tell every patient that we’re not doctors –
It’s better
ROSIE for women to be cared for by women, to be cared for by women.
To be liberated from men, by women.
To be liberated from men.
For women to be cared for by women, by women to be cared for, for by women.
The phone rings
Hi, this is Jane. |
What if something goes wrong?
What if something goes wrong? What if something goes wrong? What if someone dies? What if somebody dies, because he’s not a doctor?
What if somebody dies?
I know but, he’s still not a doctor. We’ve been lying. I know but, he’s still not-
KATE
still not a doctor,
not a doctor, not a doctor,
Almost no complications, there was that, there was that infection.
There was that, there was that, there was that infection. There was that.
Besides what?
Kate gawps at Rosie You and Lanie? To do abortions?
You’re doing the whole thing?
I don’t know Rosie.
women caring for women
I’ll give you that. I never want to turn anyone away.
So they do know when you do it.
If they know, and consent, then
it might be better for women to be cared for by women, to be cared for by women. KATE women men to be cared for by women.
To be liberated from men.
For women to be cared for by women, by women to be cared for, for by women. |
