Title: The Opera of Savitri
Author: Preferred Customer
Last saved by: deland
Company: Dell Computer Corporation

The Opera of Savitri text and music by Gustav Holst (1874-1934)                                                                           from a story in the Bhagavad Gita

East German premiere-May 11, 12, 1995, Bauhaus stage, Dessau
Characters: Savitri, Satyavan, her husband, and Death.
Synopsis - The exalted literary tone of the words suggest that Holst was thinking of a religious drama and has portrayed the characters as religious icons, gods in an archetypal story. Death comes to Savitri to warn her that he will take away her husband. She tries to warn Satyavan but to no avail. Maya, goddess of the illusion of reality prevents him from understanding her advice. He dies in her arms. Savitri then pleads with Death, ‘what is life without the ability to give and be something meaningful - wife, mother, lover, among people?’ Death, contrary to his inflexible law, realizes her wisdom and grants that she may live with Satyavan as a gift of Death. Savitri sings a tender lullaby and revives her husband as Death disappears into the darkness.
Death: Savitri! Savitri! I am Death.
 		I am the law that no man breaketh,
 		I am he who leadeth men onward,
I am the road that each must travel,
I am the gate that opens for all,
I, the Summoner, Whom all obey,
Whose word may not be moved,
Whose path may not be turned
I draw nigh to fulfill my work,                                                                                                    I come for thy husband,
For him the gate doth open.
Savitri : Again, again those words of dread,                                                                                                   Day or night they never leave me.
Once in dreams I heard them,
But now, they rob me of sleep
And give instead the gloom                                                                                                                            of ghostly fears and dread foreboding                                                                  Within the house that voice of warning                                                                                       Lurks in ev’ry corner,                                                                                                                 Within the temple it enshrouds me                                                                                                         Until the song of thousands is to me a thing of naught.                                                                And here the earth itself doth fade,                                                                                       Naught remains but that dread cry.
‘I come for thy husband’...For Satyavan, Satyavan,                                                                                                                                              He the strong and fearless one,                                                                                                                                                In whose hands an axe is a feather?
He in whom I live
Whose soul dwells in mine
‘For him the gate doth open  ...’

Satyavan: Greeting to thee, my loving Savitri! What wife in all the world is like to Savitri?

Savitri: Satyavan, Here I await thy coming. Haste to me!
Satyavan: Like a specter of the forest,
Night’s gloomy pall is drawing nigh,                                                                                                                        ev’ry beast is wending homeward,                                                                                                                    Home to his nest each bird doth fly.                                                                                So to thee I am returning,
Thro’ the wood I homeward hie,                                                                                                                      home unto thee, my loving Savitri:
What wife in all the world is like to Savitri?

Ah, the trees that stand so proudly know not I bring their deadly foe.
‘Tis mine axe that, stealing near them,
With but one stroke could lay them low.
Farewell, friend, until the morn;
To a fairer love I go.

Greeting to thee my loving Savitri:                                                                                                                               What wife in all the world is like to Savitri?                                                                                                                           But thou art pale and trembling,                                                                                                                                        What ails thee?
Savitri: The forest is to me a mirror wherein,                                                                                                                   I see another world,                                                                                                                         a world where all is nameless,                                                                                                          unknown, all sick with fear.
Satyavan: It is Maya: Dost thou not know her?
Illusion, dreams, phantoms,
But to the wise, Maya is more, Look around — 
All that thou see’st
Trees and shrubs, 
The grass at thy feet, 
All that walks or creeps,
All that flies from tree to tree,
All is unreal, All is Maya.
Our bodies, our limbs, our very thoughts, 
we ourselves are slaves to Maya.
What remaineth? Who can say?
Love to the lover,                                                                                                                          The child to the mother,                                                                                                                     the song to the singer,                                                                                                                           God to the worshipper.                                                                                                                 These wand’ring thro’ the world of Maya                                                                    Are perchance shadows of that which is.
Savitri: Once I knew Maya, Now she is forgot,
Mine eyes are open, would they were shut,
I see the heart of ev’ry tree, pale with terror,
The elves that dance upon the grass blades crouching earthward
Dost thou not feel?
Ah! Canst thou not see?
Satyavan: I see naught. What ails thee?
Savitri: He doth come.
Satyavan: He? Whom dost thou mean? A foe?
Who is lurking in the forest,
Say, dost thou come as friend or foe?
Savitri: Ah, cease thy song.
Satyavan: Show thy face, O cringing coward. Then will I deal thee many a blow!
Savitri: Satyavan, Nay, Nay, Satyavan!
Satyavan: Mine axe that leaps in wrath                                                                                                               Hungers for thy overthrow
     It thirsteth for thy lifeblood!
... Savitri, Savitri, mine arm is pow’rless!
Savitri: Satyavan!
Satyavan: Savitri, where art thou? Mine eyes are dim! I see thee not...
Savitri: I am with thee, my arms are round thee!
Satyavan: Savitri where art thou?...
Savitri: I am with thee,
My arms are round thee,
Thy thoughts are mine,
My spirit dwells with thee!
When thou art weary I am watching,
When thou sleepst I am waking,
When in sorrow I am near making it a thing of joy.                                                                Beyond all other joys                                                                                                                Through the forest creeps the darkness.                                                                                                           All is dark and cold and still.                                                                                                  The world has now become a grave.                                                                                                               I alone am living and over me the gloom is pressing                                                                Like to a babe in his mother’s robe                                                                                                                                        Thou art enshrouded in my love.
With my song I weave a spell.
Evil pow’rs may not approach
Within the hearing of my voice
Only the gods may enter here in holiness and love.
Death: Savitri!
Savitri: Ah! All fades
Death is at my heart...
Death: Savitri, I am Death!
I am the law that no man breaketh,
I am he who leadeth men onward,
I am the road that each must travel,
I am the gate that opens for all!
Savitri: Welcome Lord,
Thou art called the Just One,
Thou rulest all by thy decree,
Thou callest men together,
Thou showest them the path
that leads to thine abode,
Our only sure possession,
Methinks even now thou hast led me thither.
Round me I see gentle faces
I hear voices
The air is holy.
Death: Thine is the holiness
Thou art enshrouded in thy self
The faces are the sufferers thou hast comforted,
The voices are the sweet words thou hast spoken,
the air is made holy by thy love
Being with thee is being in Paradise.
With thee the Gods themselves may dwell!
Savitri: Then enter Lord, dwell with me, what better fate befalleth than being with the    Holy ones?
Death: That may not be,
I am he who leadeth men onward.
Yet ere I go,
To thee who dost not shrink from me
Who badest me welcome
I will grant a boon. A boon for thyself,
Ask naught for Satyavan
My breath hath chilled his heart.
Savitri: Oh Great one, dost thou mock?
What boon hath value
If I have not him who maketh all a boon?
Death: Then I tarry no longer.
Through the gate a mortal enters.
Bid thy farewell.
Savitri: Stay, Grant me this boon!
‘Tis but slight, yet all it holdeth.
Give me life,
Life is all I ask of thee
‘Tis a song I fain would be singing
Thy song,
O Death is a murmur of rest,
Mine should be of the joy of striving 
Where disease hath spread her mantle, 
Where defeat and despair are reigning,                                                                                              There shall my song,
Like a trumpet in battle resound in triumph.                                                                                                                                                        Grant me this boon
I ask for life.
Death: Why dost thou ask for Life? Thou hast it now.
Savitri: Art thou the just one?
Art thou Death?
Or art thou but a blind spirit
 knowing naught of what is round thee?
Give me Life,
Life is all I ask of thee
and Life is a path I would travel
Wherein flowers should spring up around me,
Stalwart sons whom I would send 
where fighting is fiercest.
Bright-eyed daughters following my path,
Thro’ thy gate, lonely and desolate
Man must go.
But Life is communion
Each one that liveth, liveth for all.
Thou art for the moment, a portal soon passed.                                                                                 But life is eternal,
Greater than thou
Like bounteous rain he show’rs his gifts on us
Like an o’erwhelming wind he urges us on
‘Til time and space are forgot
And joy and sorrow are one.
Death: Savitri, glorious woman
Take the gift thou hast asked                                                                                              Life is thine in all its fullness
Thine the song, the path of flowers.
Savitri: Ah! Death the just one,
whose word ruleth all, 	
Grants me a boon,
He giveth me life,
The life of woman, of wife, of mother,
So hath he granted that which alone fulfils his word!

If Satyavan die,
my voice is mute,
my feet may never travel the path.
Then, I were but a dream,
an image, floating on the waters of memory.                                                                       Satyavan only can teach me the song
Can open the gate to my path of flowers
The path of a woman’s life.
Away, Death, back to thy kingdom!
Alone must thou travel
True to thy word.
‘Loneliness and pain are ended 
Waken once more to home and wife
Far thou journeyed in the darkness,
Fiercely around thee rage the strife, 
Linger not upon the road.
Thou art bringing me my life.
Satyavan: Savitri, is it thou?
I thought there was a stranger here who threatened.
Savitri: One hath been here, a Holy One,
Who blessed me.
Satyavan: Then it was but a dream,
Yea, so too was my weariness,
Maya had seized me.
I was her slave. Now hath she fled.
Naught remains but thou and thy love,
Thou alone art free from Maya,
Thou alone art real.
Savitri: Without thee
I am as the dead,
A word without meaning, 
Fire without warmth, 
a starless night.
 	Thou makest me real.
Thou givest me life.
When thou art weary, I am watching, 
When thou sleepst, I am waking,                                                                                              When in sorrow, I am near making it a thing of joy                                                       Beyond all other joys.
Death: Unto his kingdom
Death wendeth alone
One hath conquer’d him,                                                                                                                     One knowing life,
One free from Maya
Maya who reigns where men dream they are living,
Whose pow’r extends to that other world                                                                                  where men dream that they are dead.
For even Death is Maya.
Savitri: I am with thee,                                                                                                                	My arms are round thee,
Thy thoughts are mine,
My spirit dwells with thee.
When thou art weary I am watching,
When thou sleepst I am waking,
When in sorrow I am near making it a thing of joy
Beyond all other joys.
 
Excerpts from the sleeve notes for Savitri by Colin Matthews for Operaworks, 2000:
Although Savitri is rightly considered to be Holst’s first successful opera, its success was only achieved after at least six earlier attempts at the medium: opera clearly obsessed Holst in his early years. He spent much of his time as a student reading and listening to the music of Wagner. In Imogen Holst’s words, ‘He ate and drank Wagner and took in huge draughts of Wagner with every gasp of air he breathed’. 
The small scale of Holst’s earliest works for the stage - several un-adventurous, though competent, operettas after the Sullivan model - soon gave way to more ambitious plans. The culmination was Sita (1900-06), whose three acts are in the grandest, most extravagant style, and whose musical language is, for the most part, saturated with Wagnerisms. 
Yet by 1908, when Sita was eventually awarded Third Prize in the Ricordi competition for which he had entered it (the work was never performed), Holst had composed Savitri, and with it he completely turned his back on the whole Wagnerian apparatus. 
The opera is in one act with no overture; no curtain is required; there are only three characters; the plot is of the utmost simplicity; and the orchestra consists of no more than twelve musicians. 
This revolution in Holst’s approach to opera can partly be explained by the subject. In Sita, he had turned to the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and had tried to enter into its world of spirits and demons, gods and mortals - a world not far removed from Wagner’s ‘Ring’. 
In choosing Savitri, an episode from another great classic of Sanskrit literature, the Mahabharata, Holst found a subject that was still epic in its scope - the triumph of love over death - but whose setting was simple and homely. He responded with music of equal simplicity. Although in the final scene of Sita, Holst had already begun to find his own voice and had shown that he was capable of expressing emotion with a telling economy of means, this new directness of Savitri is a remarkable achievement. 
The opening of the work is like no other opera. The voice of Death is heard in the distance, summoning Satyavan, the husband of Savitri. Savitri herself joins Death in counterpoint (not dialogue), and their voices remain unaccompanied for fully three minutes. 
When Satyavan sings of maya - illusion - his voice is set against the remote sound of a wordless female chorus. Their voices symbolize the divine world interacting with the mortal, and they are heard again when Death reappears to claim Satyavan. They join too with Savitri as she rejoices in her victory over Death, who has yielded to Savitri’s plea that her life cannot be complete without Satyavan. And the opera ends as it began, with the voices of Death and Savitri, the one returning to his kingdom, the other - the ‘glorious woman’ as Death calls her - singing in quiet ecstasy of her love for her husband.