"Here I will write" - An Entry into Tobias and the Angel

January 8, 2008 - Since our upcoming production of Tobias and the Angel is the North American premiere, I thought it might be interesting to give my readers a "guided tour" of the piece. Hopefully my descriptions will whet your appetite to hear this astonishing piece live.

Tobias and the Angel opens with an brief invocation of soaring strings and chiming percussion followed by Tobit of the Spirit's injunction to write his story (this is after all based on an episode from the Book of Tobit, a part of the Apocrypha - books that are equally claimed or disclaimed depending on how you look at it by Christianity and Judaism). In the town of Nineveh, Tobit sings "Here I will write how all my days I have walked in the ways of truth" over a contemplative harp pattern and tolling bell-like chords. This meditative mood is suddenly broken by thudding timpani and sharp chords over which a chorus shouts the horrid reality of Tobit's world: "The king kills Jews. Their bodies must lie unburied and rot." In spite of the risk to him and his family, Tobit, with the help of his son Tobias, buries a slain Jew. Exhausted by the work, and not wanting to defile his home, Tobit sleeps the sleep of the righteous by the graveyard wall; Tobias however is drawn by the wild sounds of the marketplace. . . .