Aria Da Capo

Da Capo Con Musica [Da Capo With Music]

By: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Narrated by: L J Schulz

Length: 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s popular one-act play is back as a musical in Aria Da Capo (Da Capo Con Musica). Songwriter, L. J. Schulz brings Millay’s evocation of the post-World War I spiritual "wasteland" up to the moment with a score in rock, folk, gospel, and show-tune styles.

The play starts out as a farce featuring the renaissance clown Pierrot and his elusive amor, Columbine, as jaded sophisticates trading barbs at a theatre of the absurd banquet. They are interrupted by the muse of Greek tragedy directing two shepherds (from the poetry of Virgil) whose child-like game of building a wall gives rise to greed and jealousy and ends in murder. But then the play goes back to the beginning—“da capo”—as if nothing had happened.

Written for a production in 2012, Schulz’s lyrics riff on lines from the play and layer contemporary satire upon Millay’s irony in songs like “A Wall!” and “Drill, Baby, Drill.” An Audiobooks edition makes both the play and music available for listening.

©2012 Larry J. Schulz (P)2024 Larry J. Schulz