The Tender Land

Libretto by Horace Everett (E)

2S,M,A,2T,2Bar,B,speaker; chorus
2(II=picc).1.corA.2(II=bcl).2-2.2.2.0-timp.perc(2):glsp/tgl/SD/wdbl/
xyl/susp.cym/ratchet/BD/slap stick/tabor/sandpaper-harp-pft(ad lib)-
strings

Chamber version by Murry Sidlin (1987):
1.0.1.1-0.0.0.0-pft-strings(4.0.2.2.1)

Spring in the early 1930s, a lower middle class farm in the mid-west.

The isolated world of a rural family turns around the graduation of its elder daughter. Yet, she is unsure of her place in that world. It is invaded by a threat and then an actuality of two outsiders who excite in the girl dreams of a larger life. The boys are accepted into the community as harvesters.

At a party on the eve before graduation, one of them falls in love with the girl. Grandpa discovers the match, and the boys are ordered away. The boy and girl plan an elopement at daybreak, but the boy, attacked by fears of responsibility abetted by forebodings of his companion, flees. The girl’s anticipation of fulfillment turns to despair when she finds the boys gone. Her family, who remind her of graduation and the pattern of her life, consoles her. But she realizes that the time has come to break that pattern and assert her own being. Though accepting, the mother does not recognize the woman her daughter has become. And as the girl goes to find her own life, the mother turns to her younger daughter knowing that one responsibility has ended and another has begun.

Dramatic, Romantic