KAMOURASKA

   by Charles Wilson

 

 

Opera in two acts

Libretto by the composer, after the novel by Anne Hébert (1970)

Composed 1974-75

Workshop reading: 17 May 2008, The Edward Jackman Centre, Toronto

 

 

Kamouraska is based on the novel by the same name written by Anne Hébert. Set in 19th century Quebec, it tells the story of a woman, Elisabeth D’Aulnières, who conspires with her lover George Nelson, an American doctor, to kill her husband, the Squire of Kamouraska. The narrative begins with Elisabeth beside the death bed of her second husband, Jérôme Rolland, a notary. Her story is told in a series of flashbacks with little or no regards to a linear order of events or places, disconcertingly linking the facts in Elizabeth’s life through emotional highlights as if in a dream. Soon enough we meet the younger Elizabeth, her life under the tutelage of her three aunts at the age of 15, her plunge into an abusive relationship with her first husband Antoine Tassy, her court appearances and her fateful meeting with George Nelson on one of those occasions in which the pregnant young wife was brutally assaulted by Antoine. The illicit affair between wife and doctor is assisted by the young servant Aurelie Caron. After an initial attempt at murder, it is George who finishes the deed culminating in the trial proceedings against both Elizabeth and Aurelie while George evades Quebec justice by fleeing to the United States. Elizabeth was ultimately acquitted of wrong doing for lack of evidence.

 

 

 

 

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