The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca
Dialogue for Soprano and Baritone
Libretto by Catherine Madsen
NOTE: Robert Stern requested a libretto for soprano and baritone, but his health failed before he could compose the music. Any composer interested in undertaking the work is invited to contact the librettist.
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebecca, and she became his wife; and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted for his mother.
—Gen. 24:67
REBECCA
I have ridden west from my father’s house
where I lived as if asleep
capable and restless
I worked as in a dream.
There came a man to ask my hand
for the son of his master
before I knew his errand
my body lit with joy
I ran to bring him water
I brought his camels water
I gave my steady answer
I left father and mother.
All is new, all is needful
the flowers of the field
the sun upon the mountain
and I shall know a man.
Descending, broken chord.
What man is this who walks in the fields to meet us? [Gen. 24:65]
Music shifts from fresh and lyrical to subdued, depressive, monotonous.
ISAAC
The sun rises and the sun sets, and speeds to the place where it arose. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers run, there they return. What has been will be; what is done will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. [Eccles. 1:5, 7, 9]
REBECCA
His eyes are full of grief. I will veil myself, not to blind them.
Isaac, my husband: I am your bride, Rebecca.
ISAAC
Your face is bright behind your veil.
Let me not quench its light.
REBECCA
I have never seen such sorrow and such kindness.
What is your grief, dear man?
ISAAC
The shadow of the mountain
where my life was forfeit
though at last the knife was turned.
I was the child of my mother’s age.
I served my father as God’s pledge
of progeny and fame.
Summoned to give me back to God
my father bound me to the wood.
God gave me back again.
My mother put me to her breast.
I, but not she, survived my father’s test.
She died, and I remain.
REBECCA
I saw the mountain as I rode here,
beautiful in the sun.
I did not know it for a place of torment.
ISAAC
Sometimes my eyes go dark with knowledge of it.
Yet torment holds high purity.
My mind seeks out that peak of agony
in times of blank, to wake me from my life.
Can you divide torment and beauty?
I have my father’s knife, and I cannot.
REBECCA
What piercing beauty
can reach a child so wounded
to wake him to his life?
ISAAC
This child exists in blackness deep,
Whose world is known through sound and feel;
No light can penetrate the walls
And sound and touch alone make real
These precious objects cached from view,
From grasping hands and prying eyes.
Lose nothing old; gain nothing new;
And always from within, the cries
From fear of noise, from dread of touch.
No words this child can understand,
No voice, will teach this child to tell
The angry from the loving hand. [J. M. Boucher]
Let me not burden you with so much pain.
REBECCA
My mother taught me energy and goodness
and I had heard of love.
You teach me mercy,
you live a life of which I must be worthy.
O let each daily task be a gift of safety:
no, I cannot divide
the torment from the beauty in
your sad, farseeing eyes.
ISAAC
My father’s tears fell in them
as they stared into the sky.
I saw the waters above the heavens
the clouds a sea of tears
my heart will be the altar-stone
till all those tears are dry.
REBECCA
[expansive, lyrical]
All flesh is grass
and all its mercy as the flowers of the field. [Isa. 40:6]
Briefly they bloom, but gloriously;
the wilderness is glad, the desert rejoices. [Isa. 35:1, adapted]
The life God took from you I will restore
as God makes grass to grow upon the mountains; [Ps. 147:8]
A new heart, a new spirit I will give you:
I will take the stony heart from your flesh,
and give you a heart of flesh. [Ezek. 36:26]
[intimate, quiet]
A bundle of myrrh shall you be to me, well-beloved;
you shall lie all night between my breasts. [Song of Songs 1:13, adapted]
ISAAC
You are a valiant woman.
Strength and honor are your clothing
and in your tongue is the law of kindness,
your husband’s heart may safely trust in you. [Prov. 31:10, 26, 27, 11, adapted]
Come to my mother’s tent;
unveil yourself, dear bride.
REBECCA
Let my beloved come into his garden. [Song of Songs 4:16]
The morning winds will rise—
birds and shadows of birds in the skies
and birds’ cries.
In solitary waterways
at one with sky, at one with wind
great folded wings and waiting eyes:
alone the hunting heron stands.
Alone my bones lie in their flesh
waiting against the skin your hands:
wordless as any bird I cry
and sound is lost in wind and sand. [Barbara E. Thomson]
DUET [Isaac begins]
V’erastikh li l’olam
v’erastikh li b’tzedek uv’mishpat uv’chesed uv’rachamim
v’erastikh li be’emunah, v’yadaat et Adonai. [Hos. 2:19-20]