One sobering reality when a composer creates a new piece of music and shares it with the world is that there is always the very real possibility that it will never be performed again – that it will be relegated to some dark, dusty file drawer of discarded scores, completely forgotten …. and not only forgotten by the world, as it were, but sometimes even by the composer himself/herself. More than once within the last six months, while going through the files at Holy Communion, I have come across the manuscript to an anthem that I have absolutely no recollection of having written. In fact, if it weren’t for the sight of my own handwriting on the page, I would assume that it was something composed by somebody else that somehow made its way into my files by accident. This is especially true when you compose something for a very specific occasion or set of circumstances; those kind of works (often called “occasional music”) can very easily fall into deep and irreversible obscurity once the occasion that bought them into being has passed.
As we neared the end of the second performance in early February, the one-act chamber opera I composed with Matt Boresi, I found myself with a huge lump in my throat that derived not so much from the sorrowful story being told (the hostage crisis of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games) as it did with the realization that the extraordinary odyssey that Matt and I and these eleven young men had experienced was about to draw to a close- and with two of the guys graduating, it would be next to impossible for this cast to gather again to sing this work which had been crafted specifically for them. In short, I found myself mourning a peculiar sort of loss like none I could ever remember experiencing before.
That’s why it was such a joy when an unexpected series of circumstances presented us with the opportunity to perform the opera again- this time as the culminating event for Carthage’s No Hate Week. The process of getting the opera back in performance shape was not easy, especially because all eleven guys are caught up in their second semester obligations- which made it all but impossible for us to gather the entire cast in one place at one time. There was a ten minute period a week ahead of the performance, and 45 minutes the day before- but otherwise, our preparation had to be done in rather piecemeal fashion – coaching two guys here, three guys there, etc. Fortunately, the opera seemed to have lodged itself into their minds and hearts, and it came back without too much trouble.
What was most notable about this additional performance, however, was what Matt Boresi described as a remarkable improvement in the guys’s maturity and focus and intensity. For as well as they performed the opera in February, they came to this performance almost as though they were years older and wiser and polished. I don’t think either of us expected that to be the case- and certainly not to such a dramatic extent. And I think Matt realized it much more than I did because he was able to really watch them while my focus was split between the stage and the score off of which I was reading – and thanks to my cataracts, they were rather blurry to me. But as I later watched the web stream – and examined these still photos – I began to understand what excited and impressed him so much.
One thing that made this performance a new adventure was that we incorporated some projected photographic images from the time of the tragedy, which proved to be helpful – and we also tweaked the score and libretto ever so slightly. As was said during the Talk Back in answer to someone’s question, the work is Complete …. but not Finished. Another way to think of it is that The Paint Isn’t Dry. Matt and I have more to do with this work- although exactly what that will be is impossible to say. But I don’t think either of us can imagine putting this away for good. And who knows? Maybe some of these guys (at least the ones not graduating) will have the opportunity to sing this work again before they leave Carthage. But there is obviously no way to know that, so I suspect that for most of them, this felt like a farewell performance of sorts, which added another layer of poignancy to the proceedings. After all, these eleven guys- and the 13 of us – have been through quite a lot together- and the journey has been powerful and even transformative. Matt and I were saying afterwards that if we had the money, it would be fun to have t-shirts or sweat shirts (or neckties) made for the guys that would be emblazoned with the words “L’fum tzara agra” which is Hebrew for “According to the Effort is our Reward.” I hope that they feel like all that they have given to this project has come back to them ten-fold. I know it has for Matt and for me.
Below is a summary of the opera with photographs taken during this weekend’s performance. (Thank you, TJ Gaertig.) As I look at these photographs and at the faces of the eleven students in our cast, I am reminded of something that was said at the callback. Alex Heiting talked about how exciting it was to be given music that had been crafted with each of them in mind – designed to fit each singer and their particular voice and their particular musical personality. I jumped in to say that this was certainly true- but it was not just that I wrote this score in order to showcase these particular singers. It was very much inspired by them. As I was figuring out how to set each solo line, I had that particular singer’s voice in my head, and that fired my musical imagination almost as much as the storyline itself and Matt Boresi’s beautifully wrought words. So if Black September is a compelling score, it is due in no small part to the young men for whom I composed it: Mike Anderle, Robert Billin, Peter Burch, Matt Burton, Jon Engle, Nick Gonzales, Alex Heiting, Michael Huff, Isaiah Jackson, Austin Merschdorf, and Michael Walker. Looking at their faces in these photographs reminds me all over again of the debt that Matt and I owe them. Without them, this opera would never be what it is.
(Below:) Herr Genscher (Mike Anderle) begins the opera by reading through a newspaper account of the events from 1972. Eventually, he slams down the paper – so wrenching are the memories that have been stirred up. He thinks back to those games, which had been thought of as the “Cheerful Games” – “Warfare without Weapons” – “The Fabled Olympic Truce.”
The guys then take the stage, singing snippets from the famous Beethoven Ode to Joy, which is one of the pieces of music most indelibly associated with the Olympic Games. Over them, Genscher sangs “And we beheld our Olympics of Joy! And the world arrived and celebrated!”
Once all of the guys exit the stage, then the 7 athletes/coaches return, just coming back from having seen a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.” They are in good spirits, at least in part because a couple of them have had a bit to drink. The coaches advise the athletes to sleep it off, so they can awake ready to compete. “Then we shall make our nation proud,” they sing- with one of the weightlifters, Ze’ev, clutching his Walsi- a toy dachsund that was the mascot of those Games.
It is after the athletes and coaches settle down for a good night’s sleep that the terrorists of the group “Black September” quietly make their way on to the stage, singing amongst themselves of how ridiculously easy it was to enter the Olympic Village.
Though the athletes are supreme physical specimens, they are no match for the heavily armed terrorists and are quickly captured.
The captives talk quietly amongst themselves about a couple of their peers who were somehow able to escape, and a couple of others who were killed while courageously trying to fight off the attackers.
David and Ze’ev, who are friends and fellow weightlifters, think about the gravity of their situation, and Ze’ev reminds David of a time when they were competing in the Asian Games and Ze’ev was terribly nervous and needed his friend to calm him down. David manged to calm his friend with the old Hebrew saying “L’fum tzara agra” – “According to the Effort is our Reward.” At the climax of the song, they are singing together “We are Strong Men! We are Strong!
“At that point, Issa (the head terrorists) tells the hostages that they are about to be visited by one of their “German friends.” It is Dietrich Genscher – who during the actual hostage crisis in 1972 was permitted to meet briefly with the hostages.
“And each men spoke to me in desperation, with eyes not yet resigned to death.
However long I live I will not forget their faces …. faces full of fear …. faces full of hope.”
Then each of the hostages beseeches Genscher to take a message from them to their loved ones on the outside – and by the end, Genscher is overcome with emotion. He cries out to Issa that he wants to be taken as a hostage in place of the athletes- but Issa refuses him, coldly saying “The only thing we want from you, Herr Genscher, is an airplane.” As he leaves, the hostages sing “Tell them to be calm. Tell them we are strong. Tell them we will be a family again. Tell them to be calm. Tell them we are strong. Tell them …. please …. that we love them. Please …..”
“We had no more hands to play. We had no more ways to stall.”
Suddenly, one of the terrorists notices on their television set, which is tuned in to the round-the-clock news coverage of the incident, that there appear to be policemen “disguised” in track suits who are scaling the outside of the building in what appears to be some sort of assault and/or rescue attempt. At first, the terrorists are contemptuous of such an amateurish operation, but then both terrorists and hostages begin to fear that this rescue attempt is likely to end in a deadly firefight. (Issa barks to the others, “if they attempt to storm this room, make sure no one leaves alive!” But at the last minute, the operation (code named ‘Sonnenschein’- ‘Sunshine’) was called off, having been deemed hopeless. The German authorities decide that they had to acquiesce to the terrorists’s demand for safe transport to the local airport and access to an airplane that would fly them to Cairo, Egypt – or at least appear to give in to their demands.
The terrorists and hostages are transported to the airport, ironically driving past a sign that points the way to Dachau, the sight of one of the most infamous Nazi extermination camps. At the airport, a poorly conceived trap laid by Germans ultimately resulted in horrific carnage.
“And we were helpless to flee,” sang the hostages, “and we were helpless to fight!
Our fate lay in greater hands, and a tempest raged!”
In the midst of the chaos, several hostages step forward with poignant soliloquies. A Russian Jew named Mark Slaven, the youngest of the hostages, remembers his youth in Minsk when he had to contend with anti-semitic thugs every single day. “Now I, an Israeli – a respected Israeli – was to show the world my bravery and my resolve! ” That opportunity to compete for Israel, sadly, will never come to pass for him. A Polish Jew, Yakov, remembers the horrific things he saw and experienced in the Jewish Ghetto – and wonders how it can be that he would somehow manage to survive that horror only to die in another.
The terrorists also step out of the chaos to affirm the righteousness of their cause (“who has ever shown us humanity?”) and their grim determination to soldier on through “Flames of Victory and Revolution!”
The last of the soliloquies in the finale is from a fencing coach, Andre, who sings of an encounter he had just had with athletes who (at least politically) should have been his enemies …. but at the Olympics were his friends. “Just a few days before, I shook hands with men from Lebanon. And I believe that in those minutes – those precious, shining minutes – that here was a land without borders or animosities or fears …. and that the Spirit of the Olympics could catch fire!”
At last, Genscher intones these sorrowful words: “Our fears … our very worst fears …. They were all gone. They were all gone.” As the singers quietly exit the stage, one more phrase is heard from Fiddler on the Roof: “Far from the Home I Love.”
The guys then re-enter the stage to offer up one last echo of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, with Kehat singing of how miraculous it is when those who were once divided from one another can see themselves as brothers in an experience like the Olympics.
The men then sing the Olympic motto one last time: Higher, Stronger, Faster (in Hebrew) and “Then we shall make our nation proud.”
As they sing those words one last time, one sees projected on the screen above the singers’s heads the faces of the eleven Israeli athletes and coaches who perished in 1972.
Eleven men. Still Remembered. Still Mourned. Still Loved.
YOU MAY CLICK ON THIS LINK TO WATCH A VIDEO RECORDING OF THIS MOST RECENT PERFORMANCE OF BLACK SEPTEMBER: https://sites.google.com/a/carthage.edu/youtube/